Tag Archives: Gen. David Petraeus

On Tuesday [January 23rd] BBC broadcast the final episode of its 3-part series “House of Saud: A Family at War”, which, according to the blurb, “looks at the challenges facing the new Crown Prince, 32-year-old Mohammed bin Salman, who has pledged to transform the country.” In fact the series is considerably more hard-hitting than that.

Episode one is slow burning and it takes about half an hour to get to the real point. Eventually, however, we are introduced to incontrovertible proof that the Saudis have been directly arming and funding both ISIS and countless “rebel” factions in Syria including Ahrar al-Sham and Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam), which is described by an anonymous member as “a Saudi organisation more than it is a Syrian one.”

None of this is revelatory, of course. News that the Gulf States have been covertly backing terrorist militia in Syria leaked out throughout the duration of the war. Neither is it the first time that disturbing footage of women in cages driven through the streets of Damascus as human shields (from 2015) has been reported in the mainstream.

The departure comes more in the way the evidence is presented. In this episode — as in the subsequent ones that explore corruption and human rights abuses respectively — the main narrative freely castigates the Saudi ‘government’ for its crimes and likewise condemns a select few of the West’s co-conspirators (Tony Blair is always an available villain) – disappointingly though unsurprisingly the more pejorative term ‘regime’ is held back. Where it fails most egregiously however is by perpetuating the claim that old-style Saudi despotism may be on the cusp of transformation. That arguably the most corrupt and backward regime on earth is somehow about to mend itself.

So I am recommending this series in all three parts but with firm reservations. As far as BBC’s reporting on Saudi Arabia goes this is a refreshingly frank and daring condemnation of the kingdom, and yet underlying the opprobrium is a repeated message to overlook and forgive Saudi’s diabolical human rights record and its pivotal role in the spread of Salafist terrorism because it remains a ‘vital ally’ and a ‘key partner in the fight against terror’. The BBC opens the way for this doublethink by allowing a platform to such apologists as former CIA officer Bruce Riedel, Ali Shihabi of the Arabia Foundation, Michael Stephens of RUSI and former CIA Director and RUSI award-winner General David Petraeus, who once recommended US support for al-Qaeda affiliates Jabhat al-Nusra.

My advice is watch all parts (each one is a damning investigation) mindful that all countervailing opinion is provided by sources closely aligned with the arms industry.

To watch episodes 1 (available for 14 days), 2 (21 days) and 3 (28 days) of BBC’s “House of Saud: A Family at War” on iplayer click here, here and here.

Click here to read an extended post detailing the origins of ISIS with timelines entirely collated from mainstream sources.

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Petition: Cancel the invitation to Saudi Crown Prince to visit UK

We call on the Prime Minister to withdraw the invitation for the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia to visit the UK. The Saudi Arabian regime has one of the worst human rights records in the world. Torture and arbitrary detention are widely documented. In 2017 alone, over 100 people were executed.

The Crown Prince has directed the bombardment of Yemen. Tens of thousands have been killed or injured. There is widespread famine and cholera, creating the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. Yet, the UK still sells arms to Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi regime has supported repression in Bahrain, where its military intervened to end peaceful protests in 2011.

The lives of people in Bahrain, Yemen and Saudi Arabia are more important than arms sales. Stand up for human rights and cancel the visit.

On the fifteen anniversary of 9/11, last night’s BBC Newsnight [Monday 12th] featured “an exclusive interview” with a member of a Salafist terrorist faction which a mere forty days prior was officially affiliated to al-Qaeda.

Mostafa Mahamed, puffed up as “Director of Foreign Media Relations” for Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (JFS), a rebranding of the al-Qaeda in Syria terrorist faction formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra, was afforded uninterrupted airtime to claim that aside from no longer being any part of al-Qaeda, his terrorist militia is “deeply embedded in [Syrian] society and cannot be singled out in any way”. Put another way, he is saying “we are the moderates”.

[Note that: after I posted this article, BBC uploaded the report on the Newsnight youtube channel — I have therefore decided to include it in an update at the end of the article.]

Reminiscent of the sudden appearance of ISIL, soon after renamed ISIS and then DAESH, JFS are just the latest al-Qaeda franchise. Except that once ISIS had splintered from al-Qaeda, they were immediately decried as the terrorist bad boys – the worst of the worst – a portrait that took a little of the heat away from remnant factions of al-Qaeda, including allied ‘rebels’ Jabhat al-Nusra, thereby enabling some in the West to recast them in a comparatively better light. This time, however, JFS – who have been loyal al-Qaeda affiliates until July 28th – are seeking to jettison the terrorist label altogether, albeit with nothing more substantial than a name change:

The name change was announced by al-Nusra Front leader Abu Mohamed al-Jolani in a debut video appearance.

“We have stopped operating under the name of al-Nusra Front and formed a new body … This new formation has no ties with any foreign party,” he said, giving the group’s new name as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham – the front for the liberation of al-Sham, the historical Arabic name for the Levantine region. […]

While committing Jabhat Fateh al-Sham to continuing the fight against the Assad regime and its backers, Jolani made no mention of a change of ideology or approach and said he remained committed to implementing Islamic law. The apparently amicable split with al-Qaida would suggest no substantive change has taken place.1

[bold emphasis added]

Click here to read the full report by the Guardian published on July 28th.

Back on BBC Newsnight, and following on from Mahamed’s more or less untrammelled JFS promo, the same report continued as follows:

“JFS have concentrated on attacking the Assad regime, but some in western security establishments say despite the official break they’re still al-Qaeda. Still a danger. Something their spokesman [Mahamed] denies.”

This self-questioning caveat, evidently inserted to maintain the pretence of impartiality, cleared the way for further seeds to be planted. Over again to JFS ‘spokesman’ Mahamed:

“We’ve been extremely clear about our split, but I’ll say it again. JFS is not an affiliate of al-Qaeda. We’re a completely independent body working to establish the common goal of the revolutionary forces in Syria.”

Not to be outdone, we also heard from Michael Stephens of RUSI who told Newsnight:

“[JFS] is seen as a Syrian movement. It’s seen as standing up for Syrians and fighting the regime… and so it makes no sense to peel away from them because actually what you’re doing is weakening your own position by doing that.”

But then, Stephens is echoing the opinion of RUSI’s Senior Vice President, General (Ret’d) David Petraeus, who last year publicly advocated the arming of members of the al-Nusra Front [A report can be found from August 31st in The Daily Beast].

As Trevor Timm writing for the Guardian asked at the time, “Could there be a more dangerous and crazy idea?”

Let’s put aside for a second that there’s not much difference between arming al-Nusra and arming “some individual fighters, and perhaps some elements, within Nusra.” How the US can possibly “peel off” fighters from a terrorist group is a complete mystery. In Iraq – Petraeus is apparently using part of the largely failed Iraq “surge” as his blueprint here – he convinced some Sunni tribes to switch sides temporarily, but that was with over 100,000 US troops on the ground to do the convincing. Does Petraeus think we should invade Syria to accomplish the same feat? […]

Petraeus is likely not the only one who thinks this plan to work with and arm members of the al-Nusra front is a good idea. There are probably many faceless officials and spooks who are pushing the same agenda in Washington, but Petraeus is the only one with enough clout to go ahead and say it out loud (since we already know he is above the law). Now you can expect a bunch of fresh hot takes explaining how Petraeus is right and we should be arming al-Qaida. 2

Click here to read an earlier post about RUSI that includes more on David Petraeus’ involvement with the organisation.

And what about 9/11? The justification for war in Afghanistan had been to hunt down and destroy the terrorists. But 9/11 also served as the original if somewhat discarded pretext for the war on Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam. In actuality, 9/11 ignited all of the wars under the expanded guise of that initial and ongoing “war on terror”.

The territory gained by the various al-Qaeda affiliates is a direct consequence of those wars. Having moved into Iraq, they spread out again into Syria. Funded by the Gulf States, many others have been covertly armed and trained by the West throughout the so-called Syrian civil war. In Libya, meantime, Nato provided air cover to affiliated factions of extremists in their bid to oust Gaddafi. Whilst the preferred route into Syria for the terrorists has mainly been across the porous border from Nato member Turkey. The West’s “war on terror” is riddled with such blatant contradictions.

In short, all of these Islamist factions, very much including ISIS and al-Nusra (now JFS), are small but grotesque outgrowths of the legacy of 9/11 and the neo-imperialist adventuring that singular atrocity had prepared the way for.

Here, however, is what the rather clean-cut spokesman for JFS had to say in reply to the BBC’s question:

“As for 9/11, that happened fifteen years ago, and is completely irrelevant to what is happening in Syria today.”

And indeed, fifteen years on, the BBC backs this entirely false claim by providing a platform for furthering the spread of terrorism in the name of ‘revolution’.

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Update:

This curtailed version of the Newsnight report was uploaded on Sept 15th with the following notes:

One of the biggest challenges facing the ceasefire in Syria is the treatment of jihadist group Jabhat Fateh al Sham — who have been excluded from the deal. Secunder Kermani reports.

Newsnight has an exclusive interview with one of Fath al Sham’s leading figures.

The symbol chosen for their party was formerly used by a number of Nazi Waffen-SS divisions (2nd, 4th and 34th). It is based on a Norse rune and called a wolfsangel. It looks like this:

According to an article from Der Spiegel, “they called themselves the Social-National Party of Ukraine in an intentional reference to Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist party.”1

In short, Andriy Parubiy, First Deputy Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada (Supreme Council of Ukraine), former Head of the National Security and Defense Council, and the “Head of the Maidan Self-Defense Forces” (according to bio on RUSI website) is a Nazi.

So why is the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) hosting Andriy Parubiy as a guest speaker on the coming Friday 23rd at 11 a.m. in Whitehall, London?

Please note: the event is free of charge and “open to all” so if anyone is thinking about organising a protest then full details can be found here.

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The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) describes itself as “an independent think tank engaged in cutting edge defence and security research.” Its website goes on to say “RUSI is renowned for its specialist coverage of defence and security issues in the broadest sense. Our expertise has been utilised by governments, parliament and other key stakeholders.”

What it neglects to mention is that some of these “other key stakeholders” are outlets of the western mainstream media – broadcasters and press. The BBC, in particular, turns to RUSI whenever it seeks “free discussion and careful reflection on defence and security matters.” 2 But as David Wearing of the School of Oriental and African Studies writes:

RUSI is not a neutral organisation, it is politically located, and its perspectives and priorities are highly contestable. A question can be raised about the BBC granting it such a regular platform, where some of that space might instead be given to others. But an additional problem arises where its voice is raised above the fray of mere ‘viewpoints’ into the realm of expert explanation. In conferring this authority on the RUSI worldview, the BBC is further empowering the think-tank to shape the deeper frames within which political discussion takes place.

To say RUSI is not “a neutral organisation” is putting it rather mildly. Heading the membership list of their Council immediately below HM the Queen, the Patron of RUSI, and HRH the Duke of Kent, its President, the first name we come to is RUSI’s Senior Vice President, General (Ret’d) David Petraeus. But then one wonders if there is any self-respecting defence and security think-tank which fails to include the disgraced former Head of CIA as a preeminent member. On his appointment in August 2013, RUSI announced:

This honorary role was created by RUSI’s trustees and advisory council in recognition of General Petraeus’ long association with the Institute and his distinguished contribution to the study and development of defence and international security concepts, as well as his implementation of those concepts in operations in the Balkans, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Earlier this year, General Petraeus was conferred RUSI’s Chesney Gold Medal for his lifetime service to the field of security studies and operations. 3

In other words, RUSI is so keen to acknowledge Petraeus’ “distinguished contribution” and already “long association” that besides a medal (something he must be in short supply of) it also awards him with a bespoke ‘honorary’ position. This is the same Petraeus who was found guilty of leaking highly classified secrets. The same Petraeus who more recently publicly advocated the arming of members of the al-Nusra Front (aka al-Qaeda in Syria) [A report can be found from August 31st in The Daily Beast].

As Trevor Timm writing for the Guardian rhetorically asks, “Could there be a more dangerous and crazy idea?”

Let’s put aside for a second that there’s not much difference between arming al-Nusra and arming “some individual fighters, and perhaps some elements, within Nusra.” How the US can possibly “peel off” fighters from a terrorist group is a complete mystery. In Iraq – Petraeus is apparently using part of the largely failed Iraq “surge” as his blueprint here – he convinced some Sunni tribes to switch sides temporarily, but that was with over 100,000 US troops on the ground to do the convincing. Does Petraeus think we should invade Syria to accomplish the same feat? […]

Petraeus is likely not the only one who thinks this plan to work with and arm members of the al-Nusra front is a good idea. There are probably many faceless officials and spooks who are pushing the same agenda in Washington, but Petraeus is the only one with enough clout to go ahead and say it out loud (since we already know he is above the law). Now you can expect a bunch of fresh hot takes explaining how Petraeus is right and we should be arming al-Qaida. 4

But then this year it was Vice-President General (Retd) Petraeus’ turn to present the Chesney Gold Medal. The award went to fellow Bilderberg bigwig Henry Kissinger who RUSI describe as “a man who has had a profoundly positive influence on the United States, the United Kingdom and our world”. 5

Back at “independent think tank” RUSI, former Tory leader and Foreign Secretary, William Hague (now Baron Hague of Richmond) was made Chairman in late July – an appointment that puts him one notch below Petraeus, but one above Vice Admiral Rory McLean CB OBE, RUSI’s Vice Chairman and a close friend of Prince Andrew:

Prof Michael Clarke, director general of Rusi, said: “The Right Honourable William Hague is the most ideal choice of chairman to succeed Lord Hutton in this role. His experience at the very top of UK politics since 1997 is unrivalled and his status as a global figure is exactly right for the next phase of Rusi’s development.” 6

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RUSI is a part of the ever-expanding third sector. A Registered Charity no less (No. 210639), albeit without volunteers, but an organisation that “receives no core funding from government” even if “some government departments are corporate members of RUSI and may fund specific projects.” It is a charity with “membership packages [that] provide privileged networking opportunities and benefits tailored to meet the needs of both individuals and large organisations.” Membership which includes a plethora of major corporations, including some with familiar names:

(At Standard Level) the Carlyle Group: one of the most powerful and influential and secretive firms in Washington with links to the Bush family and close ties with the House of Saud.

As an aside: since the attacks of 9/11, the Carlyle Group has risen to become the No. 1 private equity firm in the world:

ON the day Osama bin Laden’s men attacked America, Shafiq bin Laden, described as an estranged brother of the terrorist, was at an investment conference in Washington, DC, along with two people who are close to President George Bush: his father, the first President Bush, and James Baker, the former secretary of state who masterminded the legal campaign that secured Dubya’s move to the White House. The conference was hosted by the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm that manages billions of dollars, including, at the time, some bin Laden family wealth. It also employs Messrs Bush and Baker.

In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, when no one was being allowed in or out of the United States, many members of the bin Laden family in America were spirited home to Saudi Arabia. The revival of defence spending that followed greatly increased the value of the Carlyle Group’s investments in defence companies. 7

One feels that only in the Twenty-First Century could such a talking shop for private equity firms, military contractors, related hi-tech industries and associated businesses designate itself a charity. Not that RUSI is simply another venue for corporate networking, because being a ‘think tank’ means that it provides (by its own account) a far more important service than that.

RUSI describes itself as a “thought-leader institute” as well as the “UK’s premier forum on defence and security”. An institution that, as I quoted above, proudly boasts “Our expertise has been utilised by governments, parliament and other key stakeholders.” Reading between the lines then, RUSI is there both to inform and to influence British foreign policy – in fact, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) is actually listed amongst its ‘Major Corporate Members”, sandwiched unceremoniously between the data analysis firm Palantir Technologies and a manufacturer of hi-tech military and surveillance equipment, L-3 Communications.

Likewise, when it comes to boosting domestic security, RUSI is there on hand to offer its obliging nudge. Indeed, when Director General Michael Clarke welcomes William Hague as RUSI’s new Chairman and immediately talks about “the next phase of Rusi’s development”, I am ominously reminded of Hague’s less than reassuring entreaty:

“if you are a law abiding citizen of this country… you have nothing to fear. Nothing to fear about the British State or intelligence agencies listening to the contents of your phone calls or anything like that.”

Many of the military-industrial sponsors who pay their dues to RUSI clearly stand to gain from the tightening of the police state. Building a surveillance state is good for (big) business. Intelligence also carries a hefty price-tag. And of course all of the defence and security contractors continue to expand in more traditional ways, which doubtless is why RUSI too is beginning to expand its own operations globally. Most notably, in December 2007 it opened a new office – its first branch in the Middle East – in the oil rich Gulf State of Qatar:

Opening with the outstanding support of His Excellency Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabr Al-Thani, Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, the establishment of the RUSI office in Doha is part of the Institute’s strategy to expand its defence and security research activities to key regions of the world. 8

And we ought not be surprised to learn that in spite of the rarely mentioned fact that Qatar “remains one of the most repressive regimes in the world where, to give one example, a poet whose verse was deemed offensive to the state and the Emir is currently serving a fifteen year jail sentence in solitary confinement. Those, like RUSI, who are at liberty to speak in Qatar do so within state-approved parameters.”

So writes David Wearing of SOAS, also taken from the article quoted above, which continues:

Indeed, in written and oral evidence given to the House of Commons select committee’s recent review of Britain’s relationship with Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, RUSI figures were amongst the most warmly supportive of Whitehall’s alliance with the Gulf regimes, their perspective contrasting sharply with that of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Bahraini human rights activists (evidence from Maryam Alkhawaja, of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, can be found halfway downthis page).

On the subject of Bahrain’s violent crushing of an overwhelmingly peaceful pro-democracy movement in the spring of 2011, RUSI opined in its written evidence that “[s]uppressing dissent is not something most countries have problems with; it is doing so in an acceptable manner that poses the challenge, and that is where the UK’s efforts in Bahrain [in terms of advice and training] can help”. The question, for RUSI, is not whether a Gulf monarchy allied to the British state “suppresses dissent”, but whether it does so “in an acceptable manner”, a revealing insight into the priorities, interests and values of the organisation. 9

Click here to read David Wearing’s full article entitled “Why is the BBC presenting RUSI as objective analysts of the Middle East?”

So why is RUSI welcoming a Nazi to speak in London on Friday? Well, RUSI is first and foremost an arm of the British establishment but also, and arguably more importantly, a well-oiled tool of the Anglo-America corporate powers – a centre to what is referred to in America as the Iron Triangle, where special interests bisect with government. Something epitomised by RUSI member The Carlyle Group.

The role of RUSI is twofold: to pump out pro-western corporate propaganda and to help peddle influence across the world. So the short answer is that Parubiy, the “Head of the Maidan Self-Defense Forces” (according to his RUSI bio), is coming to London for the same reason that America and the EU were so eager to foment the uprising in Ukraine that he spearheaded (unless we accept his fascist brigades really were “Self-Defence Forces”). The still more abbreviated answer is: it’s about the geopolitics, stupid! The money too.

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One mainstream publication to have shone light on Parubiy’s visit is The Jewish Chronicle, which is hardly surprising is it? A spokesman for RUSI told them:

“Rusi is devoted to the promotion of an open, unhindered debate on all relevant international matters, as they affect the security and well-being of the United Kingdom and its allies. While the Institute will refuse a platform to people who openly advocate violence or any other actions which are deemed illegal under either domestic or international law, in the spirit of a free debate Rusi often hosts people and organisations whose views some may find objectionable.”

“Although Mr Parubiy will not be speaking on behalf of Svoboda [Ukrainian neo-Nazi party], we do hope that those present will hold him to account for his past involvement in some of the ugliest fascist movements in the Ukraine.”10

In truth I had imagined that The Jewish Chronicle might have expressed greater outrage over the visit of a confirmed Nazi (and co-founder of an ultra-right political party) to this outwardly prestigious British institution with its royal patronage, but instead the article is remarkably soft on RUSI. Perhaps that’s because the recently appointed Chairman of RUSI, Lord Hague is also a longstanding member of the Conservative Friends of Israel, an organisation he apparently joined at the age of fifteen. After all, if allowing a self-declared Nazi the platform to speak is okay with the Conservative Friends of Israel, as it presumably is, then it’s probably okay with Israel too.

Indeed, listed amongst RUSI’s ‘Diplomatic Corporate Members’ (from their annual report 2014–15 also on p31), tucked in between the Royal Netherlands Embassy and the Embassy of the Kingdom of Bahrain, is the Embassy of Israel. Have they nothing to say?

Anyone thinking they might like to protest Friday’s event in Whitehall may find it helpful to click here.

According to a recent survey conducted between June 10th and July 2nd by ORB International, a U.K.-based market research firm, that was published in the Washington Post on September 15th, 82% of Syrians questioned believe “IS is US and foreign made group”.*

So are four out of every five Syrians mistaken…?

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This will be the longest article I have ever published and also the most intensively documented. The main assertion is that the story of the Syrian “civil war” as it has been (and continues to be) presented – periodically reframed to conceal the most glaring discrepancies in the permitted narrative – is entirely phoney. That the Arab Spring was not so much the catalyst for an uprising which opened the door for Islamist terrorists, but served as a pretext to orchestrate regime change by means of a deliberate invasion of Salafist death squads. In short, that al-Qaeda factions (ISIS is merely an allied splinter group and a later brand) were always the unwitting agent and enabling force for western expansionism in the pursuit of corporatist geostrategic interests – most obviously for the capture and control of fossil fuel resources.

To argue that al-Qaeda/ISIS operate as our pawns does not mean, however, that we own them – only that (with the help of close allies) we have covertly backed them, and then manoeuvred and manipulated them to pursue our ends. This strategy is not as novel as it may sound, but tried and tested in the Cold War battle to defeat the Soviet Union when we armed and backed the Mujahideen (forerunners to al-Qaeda) during Operation Cyclone.

More than three years ago (August 7th, 2012), I published an article entitled “what’s the truth about the civil war in Syria?” in which I collated evidence of how the west and its allies were already knowingly supporting al-Qaeda fighters against Assad. Back then I wrote:

It seems then, that America are back in the business of supporting al-Qaeda. This is not as unusual as it may sound. If you wind back only as far as the Libyan intervention you’ll find that al-Qaeda was leading much of the opposition there too. Indeed, you may recall that back in November, the black flag of al-Qaeda was actually raised over the courthouse in Benghazi – the place where the Libyan revolution had first ignited

And including an appending quote taken from an article entitled “Al-Qaeda’s specter in Syria”, written by Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies for the Council on Foreign Relations, Ed Husain, that reads:

The Syrian rebels would be immeasurably weaker today without al-Qaeda in their ranks. By and large, Free Syrian Army (FSA) battalions are tired, divided, chaotic, and ineffective. Feeling abandoned by the West, rebel forces are increasingly demoralized as they square off with the Assad regime’s superior weaponry and professional army. Al-Qaeda fighters, however, may help improve morale. The influx of jihadis brings discipline, religious fervor, battle experience from Iraq, funding from Sunni sympathizers in the Gulf, and most importantly, deadly results. In short, the FSA needs al-Qaeda now.

What follows is a sequence of official admissions and mainstream articles that document the origins of ISIS in Iraq and subsequent expansion into Syria which prove beyond contradiction that the west backed the extremists since the earliest stages of the “civil war”, how the majority of the so-called “rebels” are and always have been foreign invaders and not domestic insurgents, and why the only viable long-term solution must be a political one that starts with the total isolation of all Islamist terrorist groups. For as Vice President Joe Biden confessed to us a year ago, when they were looking for opponents to fight the Assad government “there was no moderate middle”. Moreover, Biden, strangely eager to spill the beans, then went on to say:

[America’s allies] poured hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad – except that the people who were being supplied were al-Nusra and al-Qaeda, and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world.

[Joe Biden’s speech from October 2014 is transcribed in its entirety in the timeline below.]

However, what Biden failed to add is how both the emergence and the survival of ISIS are not solely due to Gulf state support nor merely the maintenance of supply lines running via Turkey, but more directly thanks to the clandestine activities of the CIA under the leadership of General David Petraeus and then John Brennan who spent $1 billion a year ($1 out of every $15 of the CIA budget) to train and equip some 10,000 fighters. To a considerable extent, it has been the CIA that built up ISIS:

The CIA declined to comment on the program or its budget. But U.S. officials defended the scale of the expenditures, saying the money goes toward much more than salaries and weapons and is part of a broader, multibillion-dollar effort involving Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey to bolster a coalition of militias known as the Southern Front of the Free Syrian Army.

Much of the CIA’s money goes toward running secret training camps in Jordan, gathering intelligence to help guide the operations of agency-backed militias and managing a sprawling logistics network used to move fighters, ammunition and weapons into the country.

Click here to read the full Washington Post report entitled “Secret CIA effort in Syria faces large funding cut” published on June 12th.

It is also worth bearing in mind that the Nato war against ISIS which began August last year has been an inherently phoney one. A war committed to achieving two mutually incompatible outcomes: on the one hand, the restoration of order by the annihilation of Islamist terrorists in the region, and, on the other, the defeat of the Syrian army to bring about the toppling of the government. And given these contradictory goals, how can we be sure that the primary mission has ever been to weaken ISIS, rather than an opportunity to further damage and degrade Syrian infrastructure, which is, of course, another prerequisite for regime change?

Today’s “coalition of the willing” is in any case intrinsically conflicted. For instance, when the US supported Kurdish resistance fighters in the battle to liberate Kobane a year ago, we are told that they accidentally airdropped weapons and other supplies to Islamic State fighters – which happened because “Turkey would not allow Kurdish fighters to cross its borders into Kobane to bolster the town’s defenses.” So which side is Turkey, a Nato member, on?

More recently, once Turkey had joined the ostensibly anti-ISIS coalition this July, its first action involved the launch of airstrikes simultaneously against both IS and Kurdish forces. Little surprise then, that after well over a year and around $4 billion spent conducting this undeclared air offensive there remains no end in sight at all. Meanwhile, and as with previous wars against Iraq and Libya, the civilian death toll directly resulting from the western intervention is rarely reported upon and officially denied. Our bombs are “surgical” and our killings of civilians simply don’t get counted.

Finally, ISIS really is not the invincible force we are accustomed to believe. Rather, they are affiliated gangs of thugs and murderers, who have been successfully held off and then beaten back by committed and courageous though wholly under-resourced Kurdish resistance forces in the north of Syria. However, for those who desire either to see the butchering continue in order to undermine regional stability, or else to use this threat of murderous hoards in a bait and switch where the ultimate aim is always regime change (the neo-con agenda all along, and an outcome that is furthered by chaos and instability) we should not be surprised if the propaganda tends to magnify the strength of ISIS and to exaggerate the difficulty of eradicating them. In reality, they are surrounded by enemies on many sides and if supplies of armaments, other material support and finance were shut off – with Turkey controlling its own border and with serious pressure applied to their sponsors in the Gulf States – then ISIS, as sitting ducks, would rather quickly wither away.

The greater part of this article will be based around an adaptation and extension of a timeline of mainstream articles put together and published by Kevin Borge. His aim, in part, is to reveal how instead of joining the dots, the corporate media overlooks the evidence (evidence it has actually published), in order to preserve an overarching officially sanctioned narrative which justifies all ongoing western “interventions” on the grounds of spreading “freedom and democracy” and other “humanitarian” goals.

In the same spirit as Borge I have tried to limit my own commentary so far as possible and to let the endless misdirection and duplicity within the mainstream version of events speak for itself. In contrast to Borge, I have also decided to try to prise apart the interlocking roles played by i) the United States, Nato and the other western powers; ii) the Gulf States and most especially – though certainly not exclusively – Saudi Arabia and Qatar; iii) Turkey under President Recep Erdoğan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu; and last but by no means least, iv) Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel.

But I will begin with what is arguably the single most extraordinary admission so far in this sorry tale…

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When Lieutenant General Michael T. Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) was interviewed in late July by Mehdi Hasan on Al Jazeera’s show Head to Head, Hasan pointed to a DIA report presented in August 2012 but recently declassified through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which correctly predicts: “If the situation unravels, there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria… and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime.”

In other words, as Hasan points out, “the US saw ISIL caliphate coming and did nothing”

Flynn replies [from 9:35 mins]:

I think that where we missed the point – where we totally blew it – was in the very beginning. I mean we’re talking four years now into this effort in Syria. Most people won’t even remember – I mean it’s only been a couple of years – the Free Syrian Army, that movement, I mean where are they today? Al-Nusra, where are they today? And how much have they changed? When you don’t get in and help somebody they’re going to find other means to achieve their goals. And I think right now, we’ve allowed these extremist militants to come in…

Hasan cuts in: Why did you do that? You were the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency… Did you see this document in 2012? Did this come across your table…? So when you saw this, did you not pick up a phone and say “what on earth are we doing supporting these Syrian rebels? And what did you do about it? Did you say we shouldn’t be supporting these groups?

Flynn responds: I did. I mean we argued about these different groups that are there and we said, you know, who is that is involved here. And I will tell you that I do believe that the intelligence was very clear, and now it’s a matter of whether or not policy is going to be as clear and as defining and as precise as it needs to be. And I don’t believe it was…

Hasan: Just to clarify here, today my understanding is you’re saying we should have backed the rebels.

Flynn: We should have done more earlier on in this effort, you know, than we did…

Hasan: But three years ago, let’s just be clear – for the sake of our viewers – in 2012, your agency was saying quote: “the Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI [Al- Qaeda in Iraq] are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria.” In 2012, the US was helping coordinate arms transfers to those same groups. Why did you not stop that, if you’re worried about the rise of quote-unquote “Islamic extremists”?

Flynn: I hate to say it’s not my job, but… my job was to ensure that the accuracy of our intelligence that was being presented was as good as it could be. And I will tell you it goes before 2012. I mean when we were in Iraq and we still had decisions to be made before there was a decision to pull out of Iraq in 2011. I mean it was very clear what we were going to face.

Hasan: Well, I admire your frankness on this subject. Let me just clarify once more: you are basically saying that even in government at the time you knew those groups were around. You saw this analysis and you were arguing against it. But who wasn’t listening?

Flynn: I think the administration.

Hasan: The administration turned a blind eye to your analysis…

Flynn: I don’t think they turned a blind eye, I think it was a decision. I think it was a wilful decision.

Hasan: A wilful decision to support an insurgency that had Salafists, Al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood?

Flynn: Well, a wilful decision to do what they’re doing… you have to really ask the President, what is it that he actually is doing with the policy that is in place because it is very, very confusing. I’m sitting here today Mehdi and I can’t tell you exactly what that is, and I’ve been at this a long time.

[The transcript above is mine.]

Click here to watch the full interview first broadcast on Friday July 31st at the Al Jazeera website.

*

Before proceeding to the more closely documented timelines, some further background and additional insights are available in a Guardian article written by Nafeez Ahmed and published shortly after the Ghouta gas attack on August 30, 2013. Here are some extracts:

In May 2007, a presidential finding revealed that Bush had authorised CIA operations against Iran. Anti-Syria operations were also in full swing around this time as part of this covert programme, according to Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker. A range of US government and intelligence sources told him that the Bush administration had “cooperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations” intended to weaken the Shi’ite Hezbollah in Lebanon. “The US has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria,” wrote Hersh, “a byproduct” of which is “the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups” hostile to the United States and “sympathetic to al-Qaeda.” He noted that “the Saudi government, with Washington’s approval, would provide funds and logistical aid to weaken the government of President Bashir Assad, of Syria,” with a view to pressure him to be “more conciliatory and open to negotiations” with Israel. One faction receiving covert US “political and financial support” through the Saudis was the exiled Syrian Muslim Brotherhood.

According to former French foreign ministerRoland Dumas, Britain had planned covert action in Syria as early as 2009: “I was in England two years before the violence in Syria on other business”, he told French television:

“I met with top British officials, who confessed to me that they were preparing something in Syria. This was in Britain not in America. Britain was preparing gunmen to invade Syria.”

After referring back to Wesley Clark’s notorious post-9/11 memo outlining US plans to “attack and destroy the governments in 7 countries in five years”, Ahmed then continues:

Much of the strategy currently at play was candidly described in a 2008 US Army-funded RAND report, Unfolding the Future of the Long War (pdf). The report noted that “the economies of the industrialized states will continue to rely heavily on oil, thus making it a strategically important resource.” As most oil will be produced in the Middle East, the US has “motive for maintaining stability in and good relations with Middle Eastern states”:

“The geographic area of proven oil reserves coincides with the power base of much of the Salafi-jihadist network. This creates a linkage between oil supplies and the long war that is not easily broken or simply characterized… For the foreseeable future, world oil production growth and total output will be dominated by Persian Gulf resources… The region will therefore remain a strategic priority, and this priority will interact strongly with that of prosecuting the long war.”

Adding:

The report noted especially that Syria is among several “downstream countries that are becoming increasingly water scarce as their populations grow”, increasing a risk of conflict. Thus, although the RAND document fell far short of recognising the prospect of an ‘Arab Spring’, it illustrates that three years before the 2011 uprisings, US defence officials were alive to the region’s growing instabilities, and concerned by the potential consequences for stability of Gulf oil.

Incidentally, and contrary to some wilder claims, there is no convincing evidence that most instrumental to igniting hostilities that then plunged the country into “civil war” was the Syrian government’s failure to respond to a severe drought:

There is no doubt that the major drought witnessed in Syria between 2006 and 2011 had a catastrophic environmental and societal impact on the country, but it is not the over-arching cause of the war.

So writes Louis Allday who was working at the British Embassy in Damascus at the time.

Click here to read his full account published on September 11th by Counterpunch.

*

i) Timeline for US, Nato and other western powers from 2006

Please note that the bold emphasis is mine throughout unless otherwise stated.

The Bush Administration has been quietly nurturing individuals and parties opposed to the Syrian government in an effort to undermine the regime of President Bashar Assad. Parts of the scheme are outlined in a classified, two-page document that says that the U.S. already is “supporting regular meetings of internal and diaspora Syrian activists” in Europe. The document bluntly expresses the hope that “these meetings will facilitate a more coherent strategy and plan of actions for all anti-Assad activists. […]

The proposal says part of the effort would be run through a foundation operated by Amar Abdulhamid, a Washington-based member of a Syrian umbrella opposition group known as the National Salvation Front (NSF).

The Front includes the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist organization that for decades supported the violent overthrow of the Syrian government, but now says it seeks peaceful, democratic reform […]

Money for the election-monitoring proposal would be channeled through a State Department program known as the Middle East Partnership Initiative, or MEPI. According to MEPI’s website, the program passes out funds ranging between $100,000 and $1 million to promote education and women’s empowerment, as well as economic and political reform, part of a total allocation of $5 million for Syria that Congress supported earlier this year.

The State Department has secretly funded Syrian opposition groups, according to diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks, The Washington Post reported on Monday. The cables show that the State Department has funneled as much as $6 million since 2006 to a group of Syrian exiles to operate a London-based satellite channel, Barada TV, and finance activities inside Syria, the Post said. Barada TV began broadcasting in April 2009 but has ramped up operations to cover the mass protests in Syria that began last month as part of a long-standing campaign to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad the Post said. The U.S. money for Syrian opposition figures began flowing under President George W. Bush after political ties with Damascus were frozen in 2005, the newspaper said. The financial backing has continued under President Barack Obama, even as his administration sought to rebuild relations with Assad, the Post said.

In Syria, there is mounting evidence that Al Qaeda and its allies are actively deploying terror tactics and suicide bombers to overthrow the Assad regime.

Syrian citizens who prefer the secular and stable state to the prospect of an Iraqi-style sectarian state may well be turning this same question around to the US government: are you with us, or with the terrorists?

This week, head of the Salafi jihad and close ally of al Qaeda, Abu Sayyaf, pledged “deadly attacks” against Syria as “our fighters are coming to get you” because “crimes” by the regime ”prompts us to jihad”.

If only the Syrian uprising was as simple as the Arab Spring narrative where citizens seek democracy and freedom. But those unarmed protests have long since been hijacked by a cocktail of agendas which have little to do with Syrian democracy, and more to do with a proxy war to create a sectarian Sunni state that weakens Shi’te Iran’s main partner in the region.

[In his “historic” State of the Union address on September 20th, 2001] Bush was correct in claiming that al Qaeda “want to overthrow existing governments in many Muslim countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan” – who were all US-Israel allies at that time.

But his list stopped short of mentioning Syria or Iraq, the real targets of al Qaeda. Why does overthrowing Syria, using the same terror tactics, fail to attract the same degree of outrage?

Bush continues: “We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism.”

This pledge appears to have fallen on its own sword, given the funding of the jihadists in Syria. The terrorists have bred and spread across borders, which is the opposite of Bush’s prophecy.

The US administration must come clean about its financial aid. It cannot use one hand to sign a blank cheque to the rebels, and the other hand to cover its eyes to their immoral and illegal tactics. It cannot hide behind “the end justifies the means” as there are too many innocent lives at stake. […]

The US regime should be actively and publicly distancing itself from the foreign terrorists and Salafist jihadists that are proliferating within sovereign Syria.

It should be condemning al Qaeda for its militant intervention. It should be condemning the Saudi sheikhs who issue fatwas for an Alawite holocaust. […]

Perhaps the US is applying another principle that they may have learned from their pragmatic Arab allies – the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

The official position is that the U.S. has refused to allow heavy weapons into Syria. But there’s growing evidence that U.S. agents — particularly murdered ambassador Chris Stevens — were at least aware of heavy weapons moving from Libya to jihadist Syrian rebels. […]

In November 2011 The Telegraph reported that Belhadj, acting as head of the Tripoli Military Council, “met with Free Syrian Army [FSA] leaders in Istanbul and on the border with Turkey” in an effort by the new Libyan government to provide money and weapons to the growing insurgency in Syria. Last month The Times of London reported that a Libyan ship “carrying the largest consignment of weapons for Syria … has docked in Turkey.” The shipment reportedly weighed 400 tons and included SA-7 surface-to-air anti-craft missiles and rocket-propelled grenades. Those heavy weapons are most likely from Muammar Gaddafi’s stock of about 20,000 portable heat-seeking missiles—the bulk of them SA-7s—that the Libyan leader obtained from the former Eastern bloc. Reuters reports that Syrian rebels have been using those heavy weapons to shoot down Syrian helicopters and fighter jets.

We are working hand and glove with the Turks, with the Jordanians, with the Saudis, and with all the people in the region attempting to identify the people who deserve the help so that when Assad goes – and he will go – there will be a legitimate government that follows on, not an al-Qaida-sponsored government that follows on.

[almost precisely two years later, October 2014, Biden entirely contradicts this statement – see below]

Most of the arms shipped at the behest of Saudi Arabia and Qatar to supply Syrian rebel groups fighting the government of Bashar al-Assad are going to hard-line Islamic jihadists, and not the more secular opposition groups that the West wants to bolster, according to American officials and Middle Eastern diplomats. […]

The opposition groups that are receiving the most of the lethal aid are exactly the ones we don’t want to have it,” said one American official familiar with the outlines of those findings, commenting on an operation that in American eyes has increasingly gone awry.

Nearly a year later, however, Jabhat al Nusra, which U.S. officials believe has links to al Qaida, has become essential to the frontline operations of the rebels fighting to topple Assad. […]

The group’s prominence makes clear the dilemma of Syria’s revolutionaries, as well as those who might provide support to them. Though members of Nusra operate independently of the other rebel groups that have taken up arms and particularly those that are calling for elections if Assad is deposed it is increasingly clear that their operations are closely coordinated with more secular rebels.

Western training of Syrian rebels is under way in Jordan in an effort to strengthen secular elements in the opposition as a bulwark against Islamic extremism, and to begin building security forces to maintain order in the event of Bashar al-Assad’s fall. […]

According to European and Jordanian sources the western training in Jordan has been going on since last year and is focused on senior Syrian army officers who defected. […]

For western and Saudi backers of the opposition, Jordan has become a preferable option through which to channel aid than Turkey. Ankara has been criticised for allowing extremist groups, such as the al-Nusra Front, become dominant on the northern front while it focused on what it sees as the growing threat of Kurdish secessionism. “The Americans now trust us more than the Turks, because with the Turks everything is about gaining leverage for action against the Kurds,” said a Jordanian source familiar with official thinking in Amman. The US has announced an extra $60m (£40.2m) in direct aid to the rebels, including military rations and medical kits.

In Syria’s largest city, Aleppo, rebels aligned with Al Qaeda control the power plant, run the bakeries and head a court that applies Islamic law. Elsewhere, they have seized government oil fields, put employees back to work and now profit from the crude they produce. Across Syria, rebel-held areas are dotted with Islamic courts staffed by lawyers and clerics, and by fighting brigades led by extremists. Even the Supreme Military Council, the umbrella rebel organization whose formation the West had hoped would sideline radical groups, is stocked with commanders who want to infuse Islamic law into a future Syrian government. Nowhere in rebel-controlled Syria is there a secular fighting force to speak of.

Testimony from victims strongly suggests it was the rebels, not the Syrian government, that used Sarin nerve gas during a recent incident in the revolution-wracked nation, a senior U.N. diplomat said Monday.

Syria’s main armed opposition group, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), is losing fighters and capabilities to Jabhat al-Nusra, an Islamist organisation with links to al-Qaida that is emerging as the best-equipped, financed and motivated force fighting Bashar al-Assad’s regime. […]

Illustrating their plight, FSA commanders say that entire units have gone over to al-Nusra while others have lost a quarter or more of their strength to them recently. “Fighters feel proud to join al-Nusra because that means power and influence,” said Abu Ahmed, a former teacher from Deir Hafer who now commands an FSA brigade in the countryside near Aleppo. “Al-Nusra fighters rarely withdraw for shortage of ammunition or fighters and they leave their target only after liberating it,” he added. “They compete to carry out martyrdom [suicide] operations.” Abu Ahmed and others say the FSA has lost fighters to al-Nusra in Aleppo, Hama, Idlib and Deir al-Zor and the Damascus region. Ala’a al-Basha, commander of the Sayyida Aisha brigade, warned the FSA chief of staff, General Salim Idriss, about the issue last month. Basha said 3,000 FSA men have joined al-Nusra in the last few months, mainly because of a lack of weapons and ammunition. […]

Al-Nusra has members serving undercover with FSA units so they can spot potential recruits, according to Abu Hassan of the FSA’s al-Tawhid Lions brigade. […]

Western governments say they are aware of the al-Nusra problem, which is being monitored by intelligence agencies, but they are uncertain about its extent.

It’s a pattern repeated elsewhere in the country. During a 10-day journey through rebel-held territory in Syria, Reuters journalists found that radical Islamist units are sidelining more moderate groups that do not share the Islamists’ goal of establishing a supreme religious leadership in the country. […]

Many pledge allegiance to the notion of a unified Free Syrian Army (FSA). But on the ground there is little evidence to suggest the FSA actually exists as a body at all. […]

So far the Islamist groups have been the ones to attract outside support, mostly from private Sunni Muslim backers in Saudi Arabia, according to fighters in Syria. […]

The moderates are losing ground. In many parts of rebel-held Aleppo, the red, black and green revolutionary flag which represents more moderate elements has been replaced with the black Islamic flag. Small shops selling black headbands, conservative clothing and black balaclavas have popped up around the city and their business is booming. Reuters met several Islamist fighters who had left more moderate rebel brigades for hardline groups. One member of Ahrar al-Sham, who would only speak on condition of anonymity, said: “I used to be with the Free Syrian Army but they were always thinking about what they wanted to do in future. I wanted to fight oppression now.”

CIA operatives and U.S. special operations troops have been secretly training Syrian rebels with anti-tank and antiaircraft weapons since late last year, months before President Obama approved plans to begin directly arming them, according to U.S. officials and rebel commanders. The covert U.S. training at bases in Jordan and Turkey, along with Obama’s decision this month to supply arms and ammunition to the rebels, has raised hope among the beleaguered Syrian opposition that Washington ultimately will provide heavier weapons as well. […]

The training began in November at a new American base in the desert in southwestern Jordan, he said. So far, about 100 rebels from Dara have attended four courses, and rebels from Damascus, the Syrian capital, have attended three, he said. […]

But arms shipments from Qatar, Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries, provided with assent from the Americans, took months to arrive and included less than the rebels had expected.

Up to 35 CIA operatives were working in the city during the attack last September on the US consulate that resulted in the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, according to CNN.” […]

The television network said that a CIA team was working in an annex near the consulate on a project to supply missiles from Libyan armouries to Syrian rebels. Sources said that more Americans were hurt in the assault spearheaded by suspected Islamic radicals than had been previously reported. CIA chiefs were actively working to ensure the real nature of its operations in the city did not get out. So only the losses suffered by the State Department in the city had been reported to Congress.

If Barack Obama decides to attack the Syrian regime, he has ensured – for the very first time in history – that the United States will be on the same side as al-Qa’ida. […]

Maybe the Americans should ask al-Qa’ida for intelligence help – after all, this is the group with “boots on the ground”, something the Americans have no interest in doing. And maybe al-Qa’ida could offer some target information facilities to the country which usually claims that the supporters of al-Qa’ida, rather than the Syrians, are the most wanted men in the world.

The CIA has begun delivering weapons to rebels in Syria, ending months of delay in lethal aid that had been promised by the Obama administration, according to U.S. officials and Syrian figures. The shipments began streaming into the country over the past two weeks, along with separate deliveries by the State Department of vehicles and other gear — a flow of material that marks a major escalation of the U.S. role in Syria’s civil war. […]

The CIA shipments are to flow through a network of clandestine bases in Turkey and Jordan that were expanded over the past year as the agency sought to help Middle Eastern allies, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, direct weapons to moderate Syrian rebel forces.

Islamist rebels and extremist groups have seized control of most of Syria’s oil and gas resources, a rare generator of cash in the country’s war-battered economy, and are now using the proceeds to underwrite their fights against one another as well as President Bashar al-Assad, American officials say. While the oil and gas fields are in serious decline, control of them has bolstered the fortunes of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, and the Nusra Front, both of which are offshoots of Al Qaeda.

The rebel leader touted as the West’s last hope to stem the tide of extreme jihadist groups in Syria has said he will not fight against al-Qa’ida, and openly admits to battling alongside them. Speaking from a safe house on the outskirts of the Turkish town of Antakya, Jamal Maarouf, the leader of the Syrian Revolutionary Front (SRF) told The Independent that the fight against al-Qa’ida was “not our problem” and admitted his fighters conduct joint operations with Jabhat al-Nusra – the official al-Qa’ida branch in Syria.

The Obama administration asked Congress on Thursday to authorize $500 million in direct U.S. military training and equipment for Syrian opposition fighters, a move that could significantly escalate U.S. involvement in Syria’s civil war. Money for the assistance, which would expand a CIA covert training program, is included in a $65.8 billion request for the Pentagon’s Overseas Contingency Operations, or OCO.

The cons begin with the simple fact that the United States has no interests in Syria itself. Syria is not an oil producer, a major U.S. trade partner, or even a democracy. […]

But there is, in fact, a way that the United States could get what it wants in Syria — and, ultimately, in Iraq as well — without sending in U.S. forces: by building a new Syrian opposition army capable of defeating both President Bashar al-Assad and the more militant Islamists. The United States has pulled off similar operations before and could probably do so again, and at far lower cost than what it has spent in Afghanistan and Iraq. […]

Second, any proposal must provide for the defeat of both the Assad regime and the most radical Islamist militants, since both threaten U.S. interests. […]

Led by Lockheed Martin Corp., the biggest U.S. defense companies are trading at record prices as shareholders reap rewards from escalating military conflicts around the world. Investors see rising sales for makers of missiles, drones and other weapons as the U.S. hits Islamic State fighters in Syria and Iraq, said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Chicago-based BMO Private Bank. President Barack Obama approved open-ended airstrikes this month while ruling out ground combat. […]

Lockheed, the world’s biggest defense company, reached an all-time high of $180.74 on Sept. 19, when Northrop, Raytheon Co. and General Dynamics Corp. also set records. That quartet and Chicago-based Boeing accounted for about $105 billion in federal contract orders last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Government.

During a question and answer session at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government last week, Vice President Biden somehow managed to anger some of the U.S.’s most vital allies in the fight against Islamic State.

Biden has now apologized to both the United Arab Emirates and Turkey for the comments, but to anyone who has been following the conventional wisdom in foreign policy circles, it’s not surprising that he would think this privately (even if it is surprising that he would say so publicly). […]

The vice president’s comments may be a “gaffe” in diplomacy – and, yes, his comments do reveal a worrying habit of lumping al-Qaeda’s al-Nusra Front in with Islamic State and not noting the difference between private and public funding at play here. But there are genuine, though complicated, concerns at the heart of this gaffe.

Here is a FULL transcription of Joe Biden’s now infamous “gaffe”:

The idea of identifying a moderate middle has been a chase America has been engaged in for a long time. We Americans think in every country in transition there’s a Thomas Jefferson hiding behind some rock or a James Madison beyond one sand dune.

The fact of the matter is the ability to identify a moderate middle in Syria was… [hesitation] there was no moderate middle because the moderate middle is made up of shopkeepers, not soldiers, made up of people who in fact have ordinary elements of the middle class of that country.

And what happened was, and history will record this because I’m finding that former administration officials as soon as they leave, write books, which I think is inappropriate. But any rate. [audience laughter] No I’m serious, I do think it’s in appropriate. At least give the guy a chance to get out of office. And what my constant cry was… was that our biggest problem was our allies.

Our allies in the region were our largest problem in Syria. The Turks were great friends, and I have a great relationship with Erdogan, [who] I just spent a lot of time with, [and] the Saudis, the Emirates, etcetera.

What were they doing? They were so determined to take down Assad, and essentially have a proxy Sunni-Shia war, what did they do? They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad – except that the people who were being supplied were al-Nusra and al-Qaeda, and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world.

Now, you think I’m exaggerating? Take a look. Where did all of this go? So now that’s happening, all of a sudden, everybody’s awakened because this outfit called ISIL, which was al-Qaeda in Iraq, when they were essentially thrown out of Iraq, found open space and territory in eastern Syria, [and they] work with al-Nusra, who we declared a terrorist group early on. And we could not convince our colleagues to stop supplying them.

So what happened? Now, all of a sudden – I don’t want to be too facetious – but they have seen the lord. Now we have … been able to put together a coalition of our Sunni neighbours, because America can’t once again go into a Muslim nation and be the aggressor. It has to be led by Sunnis. To go and attack a Sunni organization. And so what do we have for the first time?

Now Saudi Arabia stops funding. Saudi Arabia’s allowing training on its soil. American forces under Title 10 training. The Qataris have cut-off their support for the most extremist elements of the terrorist organisations. And the Turks, President Erdogan told me – he’s an old friend – said “you’re right, we let too many people through.” Now they’re trying to seal their border.

The same Washington Postarticle includes an oddly bowdlerised transcription of Biden’s speech which is cut short and missing the final highlighted paragraph, which it claims was lost because “the White House recording cuts out”. The article then adds:

President Erdoğan told me, he is an old friend, said you were right, we let too many people through, now we are trying to seal the border.

But as you see from the video above, in actual fact Biden’s remarks are significantly different to those reported by Hurriyet Daily News (a Turkish news source). His true statement also contains embarrassing admissions that would certainly have strained US relations with its two closest Gulf allies – hence the rapid apologies and retractions.

Rather than defeat, containing their activities within failed or near-failing states is the best option for the foreseeable future. […]

There is a parallel here between the war on Islamic extremists and the war on drugs: the absolute end-states for both may be unachievable, but that in no way diminishes the need to execute counter operations. Some wars cannot be won but still must be fought. There are other hard questions for even bigger threats in the Middle East, such as how to ensure a nuclear free Iran and how to deal with the Assad regime in Syria. For ISIS, though, we may have it right.

The US and Turkey have reached a tentative deal to train and equip moderate Syrian rebels, according to officials from both countries, amid reports that commanders will be given authority to call in air strikes. […]

At the same time The Wall Street Journal reported that some rebels will be equipped with pick-up trucks modified with mounted machine guns as well as radios for calling in US airstrikes – an approach modelled on that used to successful effect by Kurdish forces in Kobane last month.

Since 9/11, Washington has considered al Qaeda the greatest threat to the United States, one that must be eliminated regardless of cost or time. After Washington killed Osama bin Laden in 2011, it made Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda’s new leader, its next number one target. But the instability in the Middle East following the Arab revolutions and the meteoric rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) require that Washington rethink its policy toward al Qaeda, particularly its targeting of Zawahiri. Destabilizing al Qaeda at this time may in fact work against U.S. efforts to defeat ISIS. […]

It is certainly ironic that at this point, when the United States is the closest it has ever been to destroying al Qaeda, its interests would be better served by keeping the terrorist organization afloat and Zawahiri alive.

The prosecution of a Swedish national [Bherlin Gildo, 37] accused of terrorist activities in Syria has collapsed at the Old Bailey after it became clear Britain’s security and intelligence agencies would have been deeply embarrassed had a trial gone ahead, the Guardian can reveal.

His lawyers argued that British intelligence agencies were supporting the same Syrian opposition groups as he was, and were party to a secret operation providing weapons and non-lethal help to the groups, including the Free Syrian Army. […]

Gildo’s defence lawyers quoted a number of press articles referring to the supply of arms to Syrian rebels, including one from the Guardian on 8 March 2013, on the west’s training of Syrian rebels in Jordan. Articles on the New York Times from 24 March and 21 June 2013, gave further details and an article in the London Review of Books from 14 April 12014, implicated MI6 in a “rat line” for the transfer of arms from Libya. […]

The attorney general was consulted about Monday’s decision. Karmy-Jones [for the crown] told the court in pre-trial hearings that Gildo had worked with Jabhat al-Nusra, a “proscribed group considered to be al-Qaida in Syria”. He was photographed standing over dead bodies with his finger pointing to the sky.

Reports were cited that MI6 had cooperated with the CIA on a “rat line” of arms transfers from Libyan stockpiles to the Syrian rebels in 2012 after the fall of the Gaddafi regime. […]

A revealing light on how we got here has now been shone by a recently declassified secret US intelligence report, written in August 2012, which uncannily predicts – and effectively welcomes – the prospect of a “Salafist principality” in eastern Syria and an al-Qaida-controlled Islamic state in Syria and Iraq.

In stark contrast to western claims at the time, the Defense Intelligence Agency document identifies al-Qaida in Iraq (which became Isis) and fellow Salafists as the “major forces driving the insurgency in Syria” – and states that “western countries, the Gulf states and Turkey” were supporting the opposition’s efforts to take control of eastern Syria. Raising the “possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality”, the Pentagon report goes on, “this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran)”. […]

That doesn’t mean the US created Isis, of course, though some of its Gulf allies certainly played a role in it – as the US vice-president, Joe Biden, acknowledged last year. But there was no al-Qaida in Iraq until the US and Britain invaded. And the US has certainly exploited the existence of Isis against other forces in the region as part of a wider drive to maintain western control.

Syrian rebels receiving U.S. military training to battle Islamic State militants are being paid $250 to $400 per month, depending on their skills, performance and leadership position, the Pentagon said on Monday.

Training opposition fighters in the safety of Turkey, Jordan, and other friendly countries would still be the first step. But it would not over time be sufficient, either, since many opposition fighters are reluctant to leave their home territories and thereby leave their families and communities unprotected in order to go abroad for training. The idea would be to help moderate elements establish reliable safe zones within Syria once they were able. American, as well as Saudi and Turkish and British and Jordanian and other Arab forces would act in support, not only from the air but eventually on the ground via the presence of special forces as well. […]

This type of plan may be the only realistic path forward… Moreover, while it is not without risks for the United States, the scale of military involvement envisioned is not substantially greater than what we have been doing the last year or so in Afghanistan. President Obama…. should not view Syria as a problem to hand to his successor, but rather a crisis that demands his attention and a new strategy now.

“We all know that America is providing ISIS with weapons and food, and that it is because of American backing that they have become so strong,” added Abbas Hashem, a 50-year-old who also escaped from Ramadi and now lives in the makeshift Baghdad camp that is only occasionally supplied with water. Such conspiracy theories about America’s support for Islamic State are outlandish, no doubt. But they are so widespread that they now represent a political reality with real-world consequences—making it harder for the U.S. and allies to cobble together Iraqi forces that could regain the country’s Sunni heartland from Islamic State’s murderous rule one day. […]

This spreading perception that the U.S. isn’t really interested in defeating Islamic State has undermined local resistance to the militant group in Anbar in recent months. It represents a major obstacle to recruiting local Sunni tribes—one of the U.S. strategies in the war—provincial leaders say. […]

“We don’t have any trust in Americans anymore,” said Alia Nusseif, a prominent Shiite lawmaker from Baghdad. “We now think ISIS is being used as a tool by America to divide and weaken Iraq.”

The Pentagon’s inspector general is investigating allegations that military officials have skewed intelligence assessments about the United States-led campaign in Iraq against the Islamic State to provide a more optimistic account of progress, according to several officials familiar with the inquiry.

The six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) will soon recognize the Free Syrian Army as the sole and legitimate representative of the Syrian people, a high-ranking official in Bahrain told the Saudi Gazette.

As Syria slides towards a civil war, a wealthy Syrian exile is racing to provide additional arms and ammunition to the loosely organised bands of rebels fighting under the umbrella of the Free Syrian Army (FSA). Abu Qotaiba, a nom de guerre, has lived for the past 19 years in a wealthy Gulf country. He told The Independent he was buying weapons from arms dealers in Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan and sending them into Syria, despite the cost of an AK-47 rising from about $300 to about $1,500. “Now is a chance for [dealers] to sell them at a high price,” Abu Qotaiba said. Earlier this week, US Senator John McCain told reporters that there were ways to get weapons to the Syrian opposition without direct US involvement.

“People that are being massacred deserve to have the ability to defend themselves,” he said. […]

The FSA has proved successful at getting hold of arms, he said. Syrian security forces can no longer go wherever they wanted in the country, especially inside cities such as Homs and Idlib because some streets were controlled by the FSA. Abu Qotaiba refused to say where the Libyan weapons came from, only denying that the arms were provided by Libya’s National Transitional Council. They came “through some revolutionaries,” he said. “There are many Libyan people trying to help. They want to return the slap to Bashar because he supported Gaddafi. They have lived our situation.”

In other news, Qatar’s prime minister said Monday he was in favor of delivering arms to the Syrian opposition that is battling President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. “We should do whatever necessary to help them, including giving them weapons to defend themselves,” Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al-Thani said during an official visit to Norway.

Syrian rebels battling the regime of President Bashar al-Assad have begun receiving significantly more and better weapons in recent weeks, an effort paid for by Persian Gulf nations and coordinated in part by the United States, according to opposition activists and U.S. and foreign officials. […]

Material is being stockpiled in Damascus, in Idlib near the Turkish border and in Zabadani on the Lebanese border. Opposition activists who two months ago said the rebels were running out of ammunition said this week that the flow of weapons — most still bought on the black market in neighboring countries or from elements of the Syrian military — has significantly increased after a decision by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other gulf states to provide millions of dollars in funding each month. Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood also said it has opened its own supply channel to the rebels, using resources from wealthy private individuals and money from gulf states, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, said Mulham al-Drobi, a member of the Brotherhood’s executive committee.

As TIME reports here, disorder and distrust plague two of the rebels’ international patrons: Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The two Gulf powerhouses are no longer on the same page when it comes to determining who among the plethora of mushrooming Syrian rebel groups should be armed. The rift surfaced in August, with the alleged Saudi and Qatari representatives in charge of funneling free weaponry to the rebels clearly backing different factions among the groups — including various shades of secular and Islamist militias — under the broad umbrella that is the Free Syrian Army (FSA).

An investigation has concluded that Swiss hand grenades exported to the United Arab Emirates several years ago found their way to Syria after being given to Jordan, the Swiss government said Friday.

Switzerland set up a joint commission in July with the UAE to investigate whether grenades exported to the Gulf nation were sent on to Syria. The move came after a newspaper published a photograph indicating a Swiss-made grenade was found with Syrian rebels.

The private funding of individual militias — some with extremist views — further complicates the task facing the Obama administration as it ventures into arming Syria’s rebels. With its decision to increase support for the Syrian opposition, Washington is seeking to influence a patchwork of militia groups with wildly different abilities and views about how Syria should be run after the war.

From Persian Gulf cities hundreds of miles from the battlefield, wealthy patrons help decide which of Syria’s hundreds of rebel groups will receive money to pay salaries and buy weapons and supplies for the fight against the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

Rebel sources said Russian-made “Konkurs” anti-tank missiles had been supplied by America’s key Gulf ally, Saudi Arabia. They have already been used to destructive effect and may have held up a promised regime assault on Aleppo. A handful of the missiles were already in use and in high demand after opposition forces looted them from captured regime bases. More have now arrived, confirming reports that the White House has lifted an unofficial embargo on its Gulf allies sending heavy weapons to the rebels […]

“We now have supplies from Saudi Arabia,” a rebel source said. “We have been told more weapons are on their way, even higher-end missiles.”

Brookings Institute, December 2013:

From an analysis paper entitled Playing with Fire: Why Private Gulf Financing for Syria’s Extremist Rebels Risks Igniting Sectarian Conflict at Home by Elizabeth Dickinson.

Over the last two and a half years, Kuwait has emerged as a financing and organizational hub for charities and individuals supporting Syria’s myriad rebel groups. These donors have taken advantage of Kuwait’s unique freedom of association and its relatively weak financial rules to channel money to some of the estimated 1,000 rebel brigades now fighting against Syrian president Bashar al-Asad. […]

From the early days of the Syrian uprising, Kuwait-based donors—including one group currently under U.S.sanction for terrorist financing—began to pressure Syrians to take up arms. The new brigades often adopted the ideological outlook of their donors. As the war dragged on and the civilian death toll rose, the path toward extremism became self-reinforcing. Today, there is evidence that Kuwaiti donors have backed rebels who have committed atrocities and who are either directly linked to al-Qa’ida or cooperate with its affiliated brigades on the ground.

U.S., Saudi Arabia and Jordan are reportedly helping rebels plan attack starting in south and spreading to Damascus. […]

According to reports in the Syrian media and on websites run by the opposition, Jordan is replacing – or perhaps has already replaced – Turkey as the rebels’ new base of operations. […]

Meanwhile, the United States is constructing runways for reconnaissance aircraft near the border between Jordan and Syria, and in recent weeks Saudi Arabia has flown weaponry and ammunition purchased in Ukraine to bases in Jordan.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has accused Saudi Arabia and Qatar of openly funding the Sunni Muslim insurgents his troops are battling in western Anbar province, in his strongest such statement since fighting started there early this year. […]

“I accuse them of leading an open war against the Iraqi government. I accuse them of openly hosting leaders of al Qaeda and Takfirists (extremists),” he said in the interview when asked about possible Saudi and Qatari links to the violence.

Maliki has long had chilly relations with the Gulf states, who view him as too close to Iran, and has long suspected them of funding al Qaeda-linked groups in order to bring down his Shi’ite-led government.

He accused the Saudi government of allowing “commissions” there “to attract Jihadists, to lure them, to get them fighting in Iraq”.

He also blamed both countries for launching Syria’s three-year civil war through al Qaeda-linked groups that now operate on both sides of the Iraqi-Syrian border, next to Anbar.

“They are attacking Iraq through Syria indirectly. They absolutely started the war in Iraq, they started the war in Syria,” Maliki said. ISIL has been one of the biggest fighting forces in Syria’s civil war.

With help from the C.I.A., Arab governments and Turkey have sharply increased their military aid to Syria’s opposition fighters in recent months, expanding a secret airlift of arms and equipment for the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad. […]

Although rebel commanders and the data indicate that Qatar and Saudi Arabia had been shipping military materials via Turkey to the opposition since early and late 2012… Simultaneously, arms and equipment were being purchased by Saudi Arabia in Croatia and flown to Jordan on Jordanian cargo planes for rebels working in southern Syria and for retransfer to Turkey for rebels groups operating from there, several officials said.

German Development Minister Gerd Mueller accused Qatar on Wednesday of financing Islamic State militants […]

In March, David Cohen, the U.S. Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, cited reports of Qatari backing for Islamist fighters in Syria and described this as a “permissive jurisdiction” for donors funding militants.

BBC news, September 1, 2014:

CAUTION!!! Before reading further, please note that the author of this article is Michael Stephens, director of the Royal United Services Institute in Qatar.

It is true that some wealthy individuals from the Gulf have funded extremist groups in Syria, many taking bags of cash to Turkey and simply handing over millions of dollars at a time.

This was an extremely common practice in 2012 and 2013 but has since diminished and is at most only a tiny percentage of the total income that flows into Islamic State coffers in 2014.

It is also true that Saudi Arabia and Qatar, believing that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would soon fall and that Sunni political Islam was a true vehicle for their political goals, funded groups that had strongly Islamist credentials.

Liwa al-Tawhid, Ahrar al-Sham, Jaish al-Islam were just such groups, all holding tenuous links to the “bad guy” of the time – the al-Nusra Front, al-Qaeda’s wing in Syria. […]

So has Qatar funded Islamic State? Directly, the answer is no. Indirectly, a combination of shoddy policy and naivety has led to Qatar-funded weapons and money making their way into the hands of IS.

Saudi Arabia likewise is innocent of a direct state policy to fund the group, but as with Qatar its determination to remove Mr Assad has led to serious mistakes in its choice of allies.

Both countries must undertake some soul searching at this point, although it is doubtful that any such introspection will be admitted in public.

“The Turks… the Saudis, the Emirates, etc, what were they doing? They were so determined to take down (Syrian President Bashar al) Assad and essentially have a proxy Sunni-Shia war, what did they do? They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens, thousands of tonnes of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad.”

These policies ended up helping militants linked to al-Qaeda and ultimately IS, he said.

Leaders of Syria’s Nusra Front are considering cutting their links with al Qaeda to form a new entity backed by some Gulf states trying to topple President Bashar al-Assad, sources said. Sources within and close to Nusra said that Qatar, which enjoys good relations with the group, is encouraging the group to go ahead with the move, which would give Nusra a boost in funding. […]

The Nusra Front is listed as a terrorist group by the United States and has been sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council. But for Qatar at least, rebranding Nusra would remove legal obstacles to supporting it. […]

But if Nusra is dissolved and it abandons al Qaeda, the ideology of the new entity is not expected to change. [The leader of Nusra, Abu Mohamad al-] Golani fought with al Qaeda in Iraq. Some other leaders fought in Afghanistan and are close al Qaeda chief Ayman Zawahri.

Being a directly affiliated al-Qaeda group, the Nusra Front is nearer the IS end of the spectrum. Yet, while the Qatari relationship with the Nusra Front appears to be far from straightforward with some of the state’s initiatives failing, indicating some distance between the two, according to recent reports, Qatar appears to want to reform this relationship. This begs the question of why Qatar would want even loosely to associate itself with a group like the Nusra Front. […]

Secondly, the Nusra Front has pledged to concentrate its efforts on removing the Bashar al-Assad government, as opposed to attacking the “far enemy” (ie Western states)… This is why Qatar is hoping to bring the Nusra Front in from the cold.

If the state can get the group to eschew its al-Qaeda affiliation and adhere to a broadly moderate Islamist platform, Qatar can officially commence, with Western blessing, the supply of one of the most effective fighting forces in Syria. […]

But the fact remains that Qatar is a key Western ally. It hosts a critical US military base, it grafted US and UK higher-education institutions and ideas onto its education system, and has long promoted the Middle East’s most visible and powerful woman, Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser al-Missned, the Emir’s mother. These are transparently not the policies of a state with sympathies for the likes of IS or al-Qaeda. Indeed, there is no chance that Qatar is doing this alone: the US and UK governments will certainly be involved in or at least apprised of Qatar’s plans.

Abdulhakim Belhadj, head of the Tripoli Military Council and the former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, “met with Free Syrian Army leaders in Istanbul and on the border with Turkey,” said a military official working with Mr Belhadj. “Mustafa Abdul Jalil (the interim Libyan president) sent him there. […]

The meetings came as a sign of a growing ties between Libya’s fledgling government and the Syrian opposition. The Daily Telegraph on Saturday revealed that the new Libyan authorities had offered money and weapons to the growing insurgency against Bashar al-Assad.

A small number of C.I.A. officers are operating secretly in southern Turkey, helping allies decide which Syrian opposition fighters across the border will receive arms to fight the Syrian government, according to American officials and Arab intelligence officers.

The Daily Telegraph has seen al-Qaeda’s flag flying openly in some areas of Idlib and Aleppo provinces that straddle the borders with Turkey and Iraq and fighters in the rebel Free Syrian Army have told how representatives of the militant group have tried in past months to win control of towns and villages.

Al Qaeda in Syria (often operating as the “Al Nusra Front for the People of the Levant”) is using traffickers—some ideologically aligned, some motivated by money—to secure routes through Turkey and Iraq for foreign fighters, most of whom are from the Middle East and North Africa. A growing number of donors from the Persian Gulf and Levant appear to be sending financial support, according to U.S. Treasury Department officials I interviewed.

President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing U.S. support for rebels seeking to depose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his government, U.S. sources familiar with the matter said. […]

A U.S. government source acknowledged that under provisions of the presidential finding, the United States was collaborating with a secret command center operated by Turkey and its allies. […]

Turkey’s moderate Islamist government has been demanding Assad’s departure with growing vehemence. Turkish authorities are said by current and former U.S. government officials to be increasingly involved in providing Syrian rebels with training and possibly equipment. European government sources said wealthy families in Saudi Arabia and Qatar were providing significant financing to the rebels. Senior officials of the Saudi and Qatari governments have publicly called for Assad’s departure.

A Libyan ship carrying the largest consignment of weapons for Syria since the uprising began has docked in Turkey and most of its cargo is making its way to rebels on the front lines, The Times has learnt. Among more than 400 tons of cargo the vessel was carrying were SAM-7 surface-to-air anti-aircraft missiles and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), which Syrian sources said could be a game-changer for the rebels.

The middlemen of the two countries [Saudi Arabia and Qatar] operate out of Turkey, the regional military power. Ankara has been quite public with its denunciation of Assad even as it denies any involvement in shuffling weapons across the border to Syrian rebels. […]

According to sources who have dealt with him, Saudi Arabia’s man in the Istanbul control center is a Lebanese politician named Okab Sakr. He belongs to the Future Movement, the organization of former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, which has a history of enmity with Damascus. […]

Syrian rebel groups meeting in Turkey elected a 30-member unified command on Friday at talks attended by security officials from international powers, delegates said. The 30 included many with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists, and excluded the most senior officers who had defected from President Bashar al-Assad’s military, they said. […]

Another delegate said that two-thirds of the leadership had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood or were politically allied with the group, a composition which resembles that of the civilian opposition leadership coalition created under Western and Arab auspices in Qatar last month.

Prime Minister’s [sic] Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s “AKP government has helped us a lot” since the war in Syria began, an Islamic State fighter told a Turkish journalist. […]

“Turkey paved the way for us. Had Turkey not shown such understanding for us, the Islamic State would not be in its current place. It [Turkey] showed us affection. Large number of our mujahedeen [jihadis] received medical treatment in Turkey,” he said.

Before their blitz into Iraq earned them the title of the Middle East’s most feared insurgency, the jihadists of the Islamic State treated this Turkish town near the Syrian border as their own personal shopping mall.

And eager to aid any and all enemies of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Turkey rolled out the red carpet.

In dusty market stalls, among the baklava shops and kebab stands, locals talk of Islamist fighters openly stocking up on uniforms and the latest Samsung smartphones. Wounded jihadists from the Islamic State and the al-Nusra Front — an al-Qaeda offshoot also fighting the Syrian government — were treated at Turkish hospitals. Most important, the Turks winked as Reyhanli and other Turkish towns became way stations for moving foreign fighters and arms across the border.

“Turkey welcomed anyone against Assad, and now they are killing, spreading their disease, and we are all paying the price,” said Tamer Apis, a politician in Reyhanli, where two massive car bombs killed 52 people last year. In a nearby city, Turkish authorities seized another car packed with explosives in June, raising fears of an Islamic State-inspired campaign to export sectarian strife to Turkey.

In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan demanded and received an apology from the US vice-president, Joe Biden, over comments in which Biden said the Turkish leader had admitted Turkey had made mistakes by allowing foreign fighters to cross into Syria.

Erdogan denied ever saying that and told reporters in Istanbul that Biden “will be history for me if he has indeed used such expressions”.

The White House said Biden spoke to Erdogan on Saturday “to clarify comments”, and said Biden apologised “for any implication” that Turkey or other allies had intentionally supplied or helped in the growth of the Isis group or other extremists in Syria.

Responding to questions following his speech at the Harvard Kennedy School on Thursday, Biden described Erdogan as “an old friend” and added: “He [Erdogan] said: ‘You were right. We let too many people through.’ Now they’re trying to seal their border.”

Mr Biden also claimed [speaking to students at Harvard Kennedy School] that Turkey admitted it had let too many foreign fighters cross its border into Syria.

The incandescent response from Ankara and expressions of “astonishment” from the United Arab Emirates led Mr Biden to “clarify” that he didn’t mean the allies had intentionally facilitated the growth of IS or other violent extremists.

But there is little doubt about the flow of weapons, money and fighters from these countries into Syria. […]

Unlike the other rebel groups, Islamic State has its own sources of revenue, including until recently a booming business in oil smuggling into Turkey. US officials have accused Ankara of, at best, turning a blind eye to the black market trade. Pressing the government to clamp down on it was a key focus of a recent visit by the Secretary of State John Kerry.

And despite denials by the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the steady flow of fighters, including foreign extremists, across Turkey’s long and porous border with Syria is well-documented.

The Wall Street Journal reported on August 12 that a senior US military official accused Turkey of deceiving the American government by allowing its use of Incirlik airbase to attack ISIS, as a cover for President Erdogan’s war on Kurdish fighters (PKK) in northern Iraq. So far, Turkey has carried out 300 air strikes against the PKK, and only three against ISIS! […]

To conceal its deception and mislead the American public, within days of starting its war on the Kurds, Ankara hired Squire Patton Boggs for $32,000 a month, as a subcontractor to the powerful lobbying firm, the Gephardt Group. Squire Patton Boggs includes former Senators Trent Lott and John Breaux, and retired White House official Robert Kapla.

The Gephardt lobbying team for Turkey consists of subcontractors Greenberg Traurig, Brian Forni, Lydia Borland, and Dickstein Shapiro LLP; the latter recently added to its lobbying staff former CIA Director Porter Goss. Other lobbying firms hired by Turkey are: Goldin Solutions, Alpaytac, Finn Partners, Ferah Ozbek, and Golin/Harris International. According to U.S. Justice Department records, Turkey pays these lobbying/public relations firms around $5 million a year. Furthermore, several U.S. non-profit organizations serve as fronts for the Turkish government to promote its interests in the United States and take Members of Congress and journalists on all-expense paid junkets to Turkey. Among the U.S. lobbyists for Turkey, perhaps the most questionable is Porter Goss, CIA Director from 2004 to 2006, who has agreed to sell his soul and possibly U.S. national secrets for a fistful of Turkish Liras.”

Nearly a month after a mysterious Israeli military airstrike in Syria generated political aftershocks from Washington to North Korea, the Israeli government lifted its official veil of secrecy Tuesday. […]

Israel lifted its ban on reporting that the attack took place after Syrian President Bashar Assad told the British Broadcasting Corp. that Israeli jets had hit an “unused military building.” But Israeli officials refused to say anything about the attack, and almost no one who’d be expected to know — from government officials to former intelligence officers — is talking.

BBC news, April 23, 2008:

The Golan Heights had been captured by Israel during the Six-Day War in June 1967 and occupied ever since – in 1981, this became a de facto annexation under the illegal Golan Heights Law. Then, in April 2008, following secret peace negotiations with Syria, reports were leaked that Israel was prepared to withdraw from occupied Syrian Golan.

Israel has passed a message to Syria that it would withdraw from the Golan Heights in return for peace, according to a Syrian government minister.

The expatriates minister, Buthaina Shaaban, said the message had been passed on by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

She said Mr Erdogan had informed the Syrian President Bashar Assad of the offer by telephone on Tuesday morning.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has declined to comment.

Israel and Syria remain technically at war although both sides have recently spoken of their desire for peace.

The Syrian government has insisted that peace talks can be resumed only on the basis of Israel returning the Golan Heights, which it seized in 1967. […]

In an interview with Al-Jazeera television, Ms Shaaban said the offer had come from the Israeli prime minister.

“Olmert is ready for peace with Syria on the grounds of international conditions, on the grounds of the return of the Golan Heights in full to Syria,” she said. The Syrian newspaper, al-Watan, carried similar news on its website on Wednesday. […]

Mr Olmert’s office did not deny the Syrian reports, choosing only to state that they “refuse to comment on the matter”. […]

The former US President, Jimmy Carter, who held talks with the Syrian leader recently has said he believes “about 85%” of the differences between Israel and Syria have already been resolved, including borders, water rights, the establishment of a security zone and on the presence of international forces.

“[Mr Assad said] the only major difference in starting good-faith talks was that Israel insisted that there will be no public acknowledgment that the talks were going on when Syria insisted that the talks would not be a secret,” Mr Carter said earlier this week.

Mr Carter said it was now “just a matter of reconvening the talks and concluding an agreement” between the neighbouring countries.

Israel and Syria have said they are holding indirect talks to reach a comprehensive peace agreement.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s office said both sides were talking “in good faith and openly”.

The Syrian foreign ministry also confirmed the Turkish-mediated talks, the first since 2000. […]

The Syrian foreign minister, Walid Muallem, said Israel had agreed to withdraw from the Golan up to the armistice line of 1967.

Israel has refused to comment on the claim, although a spokesman for Mr Olmert said the current talks were being carried out with the failure of the previous ones in mind, and that the talks had recently gathered momentum.

The US and the EU have welcomed news of the talks, and both have praised Turkey’s role as facilitator.

[bold emphasis as original]

Haaretz, May 9, 2010:

But then we had the three-week long air offensive Operation Cast Lead (Dec 27, 2008 – Jan 18, 2009) ostensibly to stop Palestinian rocket attacks and to disable Hamas (with their leadership ties in Syria). This so-called “Gazan War” would cost the lives of more than 1,400 Palestinians, the vast majority of who were unarmed civilians including many hundreds of children. The massacre also signalled the ending of peace talks with Syria. The following extracts are drawn from a thoughtful article written by Zvi Bar’el.

No doubt, Israel is threatened, but so are Syria, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. It’s enough to listen to Israel’s threats to “take Syria back to the Stone Age,” “destroy Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure” or smash Hamas to understand that the style of the Israeli threat approaches that of Iran. If anyone should be waking up in the morning in a cold sweat, it’s the Lebanese, Syrians and Gazans, not the Israelis.

Nevertheless, even though Syria has suffered military blows from Israel, it continues to act “impudently,” and Lebanon, which was pounded in war, has stepped up its threats. Operation Cast Lead in Gaza did not stop Hamas from arming itself. And in the West Bank, the occupation forces have not completely neutralized the threat. […]

“[Syrian President Bashar] Assad wants peace but doesn’t believe [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu,” Baidatz told the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. But his words were lost in the alarming description of the number of missiles in Hezbollah’s hands. Because even though we understand weapons, and we consider Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah a household name, and we assemble and dismantle centrifuges every day, we lose our way when it comes to the peace process.

Baidatz didn’t explain how it’s possible to gain Assad’s confidence, and he wasn’t asked, just as he wasn’t asked whether returning the Golan Heights to Syria under agreed conditions could neutralize the Syrian-Lebanese-Hezbollah threat. These questions are too dangerous to ask to someone from the army – he just might propose a diplomatic solution.

A Syrian rebel group operating along the Israeli border in the Golan Heights said it has no quarrel with Israel, and that its fight is with President Bashar Assad, not the Jewish state — and it will remain that way.

Abdul-Ilah al-Bashir, the new commander of the Free Syrian Army, secretly trained in Israel last year after being admitted into to the country for medical treatment, according to the Arabic language Al-Ahd website. He was transferred to a hospital in Israel after he was wounded in a military operation. Rumors spread that he died and was buried in Syria, allegedly to distract attention from his training in Israel.

The Syrian opposition is willing to give up claims to the Golan Heights in return for cash and Israeli military aid against President Bashar Assad, a top opposition official told Al Arab newspaper, according to a report in Al Alam.

A Free Syrian Army commander, arrested last month by the Islamist militia Al-Nusra Front, told his captors he collaborated with Israel in return for medical and military support, in a video released this week.

Reports by UN observers in the Golan Heights over the past 18 months reveal the type and extent of cooperation between Israel and Syrian opposition figures. The reports, submitted to the 15 members of the UN Security Council and available on the UN’s website, detail regular contacts held on the border between IDF officers and soldiers and Syrian rebels.

Syria accused Israeli jets of bombing two installations inside the country on Sunday, one near the capital, Damascus, and the second in a town near the Lebanese border. […]

Israel has carried out several air strikes in Syria since the revolt against Bashar al-Assad began in March 2011. Binyamin Netanyahu has repeatedly threatened to take military action to prevent Syria from transferring sophisticated weapons to its ally Hezbollah. In June, Israel struck targets inside Syria, including a military installation, following a cross-border attack that killed an Israeli teenager. Israel said at the time that it had struck nine military targets inside its northern neighbour and had confirmed “direct hits”.

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said Monday that Israel has been providing aid to Syrian rebels, thus keeping the Druze in Syria out of immediate danger. […]

“We’ve assisted them under two conditions,” Ya’alon said of the Israeli medical aid to the Syrian rebels, some of whom are presumably fighting with al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad.

*

Update:

On the day Russia launched air strikes [Wed Sept 30th] the WSJ published the following:

Russia launched airstrikes in Syria on Wednesday, catching U.S. and Western officials off guard and drawing new condemnation as evidence suggested Moscow wasn’t targeting extremist group Islamic State, but rather other opponents of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. […]

Secretary of State John Kerry met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and said he raised U.S. concerns about attacks that target regime opponents other than Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. In Syria’s multi-sided war, Mr. Assad’s military—aided by Iran and the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah—is fighting both Islamic State and opposition rebel groups, some of which are supported by the U.S. and its allies.

Mr. Kerry said the U.S. and Russia need to hold military talks as soon as possible and Mr. Lavrov said he agreed. […]

Among seven areas that Syrian state media listed as targets of Russian strikes, only one—an area east of the town of Salamiyah in Hama province—has a known presence of Islamic State fighters. The other areas listed are largely dominated by moderate rebel factions or Islamist groups, such as Ahrar al-Sham and the al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front.

In other words, “rebel” factions or “Islamic groups” now deemed “moderate” include al-Qaeda in Syria (aka Jabhat al-Nusra or Nusra Front).

*

The timelines above are abridged and rearranged versions of the single line produced by Kevin Borge. The ones above also include a number of additions and extensions to Borge’s original.

Click here to read the original timeline for the Syrian War published by Global Research on August 29th.

* Here is a graphic showing polling figures for a range of ten questions taken from the same Washington Post article:

The InterAlpen Hotel is vast pyramidal complex that soars atop the pine forests close to the ski resort of Seefeld and brings to mind Hitler’s magnificent “Eagle’s Nest” (Kehlsteinhaus) retreat perched high in the mountains above Obersalzberg, approximately one hundred kilometers east along the same northern border of Austria (as the eagle flies). Gathered there above the mists for their annual “private” meeting last weekend, the attendees of the Bilderberg group came for what purpose?

InterAlpen Hotel nr Seefeld, Austria

Hitler’s “Eagle’s Nest”

To begin to answer this question we must straightaway acknowledge two points. Firstly, that Bilderberg is just part (presumably a key part) of an extensive network of private groups, institutes, ‘think tanks’ and other meetings that include, in descending order of secrecy, the Trilateral Commission, the US Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), its UK cousin the Royal Institute of International Affairs (better known as Chatham House), and the World Economic Forum in Davos. Bilderberg is the most prestigious and certainly the most “private” of all these.

Secondly, each of these Anglo-American establishment organisations is structured around its own internal hierarchy. At the head of Bilderberg, we have its Steering Committee, and so, for the newbies and the underlings turning up in Austria, the motivation is likely to be rather different than for the true movers and shakers.

To the parvenus, invitation opens the door to what is surely the world’s premier networking event. And between the frenetic bouts of lobbying, we should imagine there is time enough for altogether more obsequious displays of bowing and scraping. But what about the old guard? Do they too set aside this blank space in their busy diaries just to go and fawn over one another whilst marshalling the initiation of the latest cohort of Bilderberg fags.* For if Bilderberg is really as innocuous as its members claim, then this must be all that ever happens inside its cloistered halls.

Or put differently, we might respectfully ask: for what reasons was Bilderberg founded? What was and is its raison d’être?

*Note of clarification: ‘fag’ in this context is simply English public school-ese for a freshman.

*

There are no eyes here

Once upon a time there was no such creature as the Bilderberg club. It was rumoured to exist, but the rumours were evidently nonsensical. How could any such meeting of the world’s richest and most powerful people be kept a secret? Furthermore, since the only person who claimed proof of the group’s existence, a man by the name of Jim Tucker (self-described as a journalist) had nothing substantial to show us, he was plainly delusional. Decades spent shinning up drainpipes and clambering around the bushes of faraway five-star hotels in the forlorn hope of seeing just a glimpse of this imaginary band of furtive elites had clearly taken its toll. “Big Jim” would write reports to the effect that he had personally tracked Bilderberg down to locations all over the western world, but the serious media sensibly kept a wide berth. “Big Jim” was totally paranoid. They knew there was nothing to see.

Then in 2001, along came oddball human interest reporter Jon Ronson. He had heard about Jim Tucker and fancied going along on one of his legendary wild goose chases. A trail that soon led them to a remote hotel in Portugal where bewitched by Tucker’s stories, Ronson fell under his spell and began seeing the scurrying politicians and plutocrats for himself: a figure very like Peter Mandelson peering out of the tinted windows of a coach, and there were major league corporate bosses too, as well as billionaires such as the wrathlike David Rockefeller, all sneaking through the hotel gates in the backseats of limousines and taxi cabs. Sheer madness.

The tale of Ronson’s adventure in Portugal featured as the fifth and final part of the Channel 4 documentary series The Secret Rulers of the World. The fantasy of the late Jim Tucker, vindicated as strange fact, with Ronson finally shifting the focus to ask what really does go on at the clandestine gatherings of Bilderberg? He called upon a couple of attendees to speak on Bilderberg’s behalf, one being former Labour bigwig Denis Healey, but apparently there was nothing worth speaking about. Schmoozing. High security schmoozing. Nothing more.

Jon Ronson was later interviewed by Neil Davenport, a freelance TV and film critic:

‘What I’m trying to say with these programmes’, says Ronson, ‘is that the crazy people are on to something, but what they’re on to is very different to what they imagined it to be’.

However Ronson is much too quick in leaping to his own conclusions, and especially when he explains to Davenport that:

‘They [conspiracy theorists] believe that businessmen or judges should be making decisions, as they’re not corrupt. But by taking power away from politicians, they want to take power away from the electorate too.’ 1

I wonder who he imagines he is speaking for. For Bilderberg is what it is. A private meeting place for a clique of corporate privateers (including convicted felons) evidently intent upon “taking power away from the electorate” (as Ronson puts it) and into the crooked hands of political lackeys. The elected politicians who do go there, go to swap notes, and most certainly not to dictate policy:

It is very easy to write off the Bilderberg Group, which met in utter secrecy in Watford a week ago, as just a private get-together of high-powered colleagues from across the Western world which regularly meets to exchange views. That was the view peddled by Ken Clarke amid much buffoonery and mockery in the Commons. It is equally easy, as the BBC did the day before, to get a ranter of dubious credibility [viz. Alex Jones] to go over the top in portraying Bilderberg as a secretive worldwide conspiracy. Neither of these presentations stand up to any serious scrutiny, but establishing the realities is difficult partly because of the secrecy in which the whole operation is shrouded. But there are some significant leads.

So wrote Labour MP Michael Meacher after the group came to England in 2013. Meacher was the single British Member of Parliament bold enough to make a speech to the thousands who went to protest. I was there and videoed his speech (posted on youtube and embedded in an earlier post).

In the same article, Meacher delves a little deeper, starting with the group’s extremely unsavoury post-war origins:

Bilderberg was founded in 1954 by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands. He was a Nazi party member from 1933-37 who resigned one day after his controversial marriage to the future Queen of the Netherlands. In 1934 he was the subject of a report by a US Congress committee which identified him as an SS officer attached to the Nazi government’s principal industrial ally, IG Farben. The minutes of the first Bilderberg meeting declared their aim as “to evolve an international order which would look beyond the present day crisis. When the time is ripe our present concepts of world affairs should be extended to the whole world”. 2

This stated aim, “to evolve an international order”, sounds oddly like the rather more paranoid sounding claim: that Bilderberg is out to construct a “new world order”. But the very term “new world order”, which has been used by such luminaries as George Bush Sr., Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Henry Kissinger, adds a lot more heat than light. For what do they mean by it? And coming back to Bilderberg (where all five of the aforementioned have attended) how could such an ambitious goal be realisable given that its membership, although highly exclusive, is constantly evolving? Isn’t it only Bond villains who dream of such world domination…

Yet members of Bilderberg rarely deny, at least, when cornered on the subject, that they are striving in part for the formation of a fully-functioning world government. It is most urgent, they say, if we are ever to bring about peace and prosperity, adding that these can only be achieved through effective ‘global governance’ and ‘internationalism’. But this is deceptive, of course – deliberately so – since aside from being composed of warmongers of the first degree (and I shall list further attendees as we proceed), the globalists who head Bilderberg are clearly not very serious when it comes to fostering good relations between all nations. Rather, they would prefer that the nation state wither away altogether, to be replaced by supranational bodies.

More honestly stated Bilderberg (headed by a mix of international financiers, corporate bosses and, perhaps more surprisingly, a number of European monarchs) alongside its affiliated Anglo-American institutions and bodies (mentioned above) are primarily intent to expand their already well-established corporate empire. They prefer to do this by a steady process of transformation rather than forcing an abrupt revolution; taking baby steps as they set about reforming international relations and recreating a world without borders, hence “global”. The latest moves include the introduction of TPP and TTIP – “free trade agreements” that will further dismantle national sovereignty.

So if you were to sum up their admitted goal in just three words then ‘globalist corporate hegemony’ fits perfectly. Alternatively, you might sum up the organisation with these three instead: organised crime syndicate. Frankly, if they didn’t own half the world already, including the major media outlets, don’t you think they would be behind bars by now?

Jim Tucker’s exposure of Bilderberg took tenacity and great courage. Not only did his investigations put him in immediate danger, but penetrating Bilderberg meant trusting his instincts and believing his own eyes. It is easy to mock “Big Jim”, as Ronson does gently throughout the documentary, and right to question his judgment in other ways (for instance, his dewy-eyed weakness for Margaret Thatcher). Nevertheless, Tucker was also a trailblazer.

Although the group cloaks itself in secrecy, it does have a spokesman who, not surprisingly, asked not to be named. He said Bilderbergoperates in private to foster meaningful debate on the big issues of the day.

“While we understand and generally welcome the general interest in the conference, we simply cannot provide the levels of access or transparency that certain individuals or groups would like to see,” the spokesman said in an email. “To encourage the highest level of openness and dialogue among the participants, and to keep the private character of the meetings, all participants respect the Chatham House Rule.” 4

This comes from an article published in the Washington Times on the eve of the meeting [Thurs 11th].

It came as a surprise to many, myself included, that a group which had feigned its own nonexistence until about a decade ago, now employs a spokesman, albeit an entirely anonymous one. More surprising again, is his/her claim that the Bilderberg group “welcome the general interest in the conference”, especially since this was not what the handful of reporters on the ground had been saying. But then, if Bilderberg was suddenly so open to outside interest why is there any “news blackout” (as the story’s own headline puts it) at all? In fact, why didn’t the Washington Times dispatch some of its own reporters directly to Austria? Charlie Skelton, who was there on the ground and reporting for the Guardian (although not the front page of course), supplies part of the answer:

The clock has struck midnight. The dream is over. Back at the G7 summit, barely a day and 20 miles from here, I was treated like a prince. I was one of the chosen 3,000 journalists who were primped, pampered, fed and burped, given free T-shirts, gallons of goulash, buckets of booze, and all the cheesy footage of world leaders we could swallow. We lay back on our branded beanbags and were tickled silly by the gentle fist of the G7 PR machine. But not any more. The beanbag has burst.

That was Wednesday [June 10th] and the latest crop of the hundred and more attendees hadn’t even arrived at this year’s luxury venue in the Alps. Skelton was one of just a tiny handful of journalists (the mainstream media’s sole reporter), but security was already firmly locked down, and about to tighten:

“Step out of the vehicle and show me your identification!” A group of Austrian police officers took up position round my car. I pulled on the handbrake and opened the door. I swear to God one young officer shifted his hand to the butt of his sidearm, like I was about to rush them. All 12 of them. All armed. Maybe if there had only been 10 I might have taken them down using a slingshot improvised from my shoelaces, but not 12. I might be crazy but I’m not nuts. 5

Some 2,000 Austrian police including “Cobra” special forces had been drafted to guard the hotel and surrounding woods. There to patrol exclusion zones that extended quite literally miles, with military helicopters circling overhead, as well as the Bilderberg’s own anti-aircraft radar system. 6Checkpoints into the neighbouring village of Telfs sent a stark message to both public and press alike to keep away:

Charlie Skelton compared the manner in which these very same security services, so courteous at G7 (to the press, at least – G7 was locked down to exclude public protests), were suddenly acting in a far more provocative manner. And later that night, his personal experience of police harassment was to intensify considerably:

I had three Austrian policemen in my hotel room last night. They stood there all grim faced with their fluorescent bibs, torches and sidearms. It was like the worst ever fancy dress party. I offered them a pilsner. They declined. They were too busy checking my ID that had been carefully checked 10 minutes prior at a police checkpoint. And carefully checked two minutes prior to that, at another police checkpoint.

This was his report from Thursday [June 11th]. The conference still yet to begin, but police and security services going out of their way to be as unaccommodating to journalists as possible. Once again, Skelton draws comparison to what he had experienced at the G7 only days earlier:

In my trouser pocket I found a “Medienhandbuch” from the G7, which I was given in my goodie bag when I was accredited there. By the light of a police searchlight, which was trained on me like I was trying to escape Stalag 17, I read out passages to my guards to pass the time. “Experienced staff from the Federal Government will be happy to help you with your work …” An officer interrupted. “Your address please.” It was on my driving licence in his hand. This was getting silly.7

Silly, yes, but Skelton knows very well why he had become such a centre of attention. This was not the first time he found himself on the wrong side of the Bilderberg cordons:

The thing is, I never really came here to “cover” Bilderberg. I just thought it would be funny to hang out at the cordon and wear T-shirts saying things like “NOBILIZATION!”. It’s really very peculiar to look back at my first report and watch myself pretending to dodge spooks on dark streets. Ha ha ha. And now? I’ve hidden twice in the same stairwell in Athens to try to shake off the men following me. I have a favourite bolthole in Athens city centre. That’s how much my life has changed.

I’ve grappled with men in a Metro station; I’ve screamed for help in Omonoia Square; I’ve shouted “You’re lying to me!” at detectives in an Athens police station; I’ve grabbed a man riding off on a motorbike and begged him – almost in tears – to “leave me alone”; I’ve been yelled at, arrested, followed, searched, shoved, maligned, intimidated, doubted and lied to. So many lies.

This was Skelton’s personal initiation to Bilderberg when the group met near Athens in May 2009. The way he was treated freaked him out big time, just as it had freaked out Jon Ronson when he was chased by security during the Portuguese meeting in Sintra of 1999.

As Skelton concluded in the same Guardian article:

I’ve told the truth about what has happened to me this week. I wonder if the various British politicians who have attended Bilderberg 2009 could bring themselves to tell the truth about how they spent their time. I wonder if someone better than me, a better reporter, a more powerful voice, a politician even, could ask them. Anyone?

My dispatches on the 2009 conference, if they mean anything at all, represent nothing more acutely than the absence of thorough mainstream reporting. I am pretty much the opposite of what’s needed. I am a joke. These dispatches are a travesty. A travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham. A disgrace to the good name of journalism. I should be ashamed. 8

And as he pointed out in his first report for this year’s “Bilderblog”, entitled “Forget the G7 summit – Bilderberg is where the big guns go”:

Bilderberg 2015 has an extremely high-powered participant list, featuring a large number of senior politicians and public figures. With participants this powerful, and an agenda containing this many hot topics, the Telfs policy conference is sure to be covered in depth by the world’s press. And by “sure to be”, I mean probably won’t be. For reasons that, as ever, escape me. 9

A comment beneath his article reads:

“For reasons that, as ever, escape me.”

“Reason, as ever, escapes me.” There you go, Charlie. Fixed it for you.

A second added:

Oh, there you are…. Every year, like clock work, to spread your move along- nothing to see here- cheer….

Anticipation for what you might add to the discussion is ever hopeful!

But the reasons don’t escape Skelton. He knows the score too and these comments are unfair. Skelton is as much humourist as journalist (very much like Jon Ronson in this regard), and his understated, laconic delivery presumably helps persuade his vacillating editor that it’s safe to send him back to the Bilderberg frontline. Skelton knows – since we all know – that the reason the press coverage is scant (to say the least) is not because the press is disinterested, but because they are hugely compromised.

For every mainstream outlet has close, whether direct or indirect, associations with Bilderberg. For instance, the Guardian’s former editor Alan Rusbridger, who is still on the board of the Scott Trust which owns the Guardian and the Observer, is a former governor of the Ditchley Foundation , whose current governors also include (to offer a flavour) Lord Aldington, former Chairman of Deutsche Bank London, Robert Conway, Senior Director of Goldman Sachs International, Constanze Stelzenmüller senior fellow of the Brookings Institution, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, both former diplomat and former Director of the Ditchley Foundation, as well as, John Sawers, ex-Chief of MI6. In short, Ditchley is a mini-Bilderberg group. Indeed, membership crosses over between the groups: so, for instance, John Sawers was at last year’s Bilderberg meeting in Copenhagen as well as this year’s meeting in Telfs-Buchen.

Others on this year’s official list (which is reliably incomplete) included Zanny Minton Beddoes, Editor-in-Chief of The Economist; Martin Wolf, Chief Economics Commentator at The Financial Times; John Micklethwait, Editor-in-Chief of Bloomberg LP; Merete Eldrup, CEO of TV 2 Danmark A/S (a publicly owned Danish television station), and perhaps more surprisingly, Rona Fairhead, Chairman of the BBC Trust. The media are, as always, exceedingly well represented. Because, if you wish to silence the press, you need to involve them.

Charlie Skelton’s final “Bilderblog” report of 2015 expands on the same theme. Apparently it wasn’t just the press keeping schtum about events in Austria:

Weaving down the alp came the Bilderbus, taking delegates on a whistlestop tour of the Tyrol. Buzzing along above it, at a crazy height, was its helicopter escort. I swear I could have bounced a euro off the roof of the coach and into the blades. If I’d wanted to have been dropped by an NSA sniper.

In the coach below it must have been like being in a washing machine. No wonder the delegates on board looked grumpy. Sitting up front, Jessica T Mathews had a face like thunder. Although maybe the cause of her headache wasn’t the helicopter, but rather the howling contradiction of being on the steering committee of the world’s most secretive policy summit and also on the advisory council of Transparency International USA.

Also on the bus was James Wolfensohn. A fellow member of TI-USA’s advisory council, Wolfensohn was the joint winner of their 2014 “integrity award”, an honour he shared with that other famous transparency campaigner, and the world’s fourth-biggest arms company, Raytheon. Previous winners of the integrity award include (and I kid you not) Coca-Cola, General Electric and the then secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton. The great email deleter herself. I think someone should tell TI-USA what “transparency” means. There may have been a mix-up somewhere down the line.

When it comes to transparency, this year’s Bilderberg summit fails in every way imaginable. Three prime ministers, two foreign ministers, one president, no press conference. No public oversight. Just a bunch of senior policymakers locked away for three days with some incredibly powerful corporate lobbyists, discussing subjects intimately related to public policy. Subjects such as “globalisation” and “current economic issues”, which in practical terms mean the giant trade deal, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

Where once there was a deadening silence over Bilderberg, at least there is a little more coverage across the European media these days. But now that Bilderberg officially exists, they would prefer us to simply yawn-yawn about the jaw-jaw. Nothing to hear here.

*

Rats’ feet over broken glass

The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal. From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and of our moral standards of judgment, this normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together, for it implied — as had been said at Nuremberg over and over again by the defendants and their counsels — that this new type of criminal, who is in actual fact hostis generis humani [“enemy of mankind”], commits his crimes under circumstances that make it well-nigh impossible for him to know or to feel that he is doing wrong. 10

So wrote Hannah Arendt after she had watched Adolf Eichmann testify during his trial in Jerusalem in 1961. What shocked her most of all was how this evil and powerful man (relatively speaking) could be so dull, so mediocre, and so absolutely unrepentant. Arendt was searching for a philosophical explanation for this, but is there one? Or even a psychological account?

Arendt perhaps is better known for coining the phrase “the banality of evil”, which she repeats on a number of occasions throughout her works, although she never precisely defines what she means by it. One approximate definition she did give goes along the lines that ‘the banality of evil wasn’t the presence of something, but its absence – something you expected to be there, but just isn’t’ 11

Today we might talk about the sociopath and the psychopath (Arendt does not speculate much in this regard), which is another subject journalist Jon Ronson went on to explore in his more recent study, The Psychopath Test.

Ever the gentle persuader, in a few hundred pages, Ronson conveys the opinion that psychopathy is under-diagnosed even more frequently than it is over-diagnosed, being very nearly as difficult to identify, as it is impossible to treat (according to current wisdom). He also points to how psychopaths and sociopaths tend to see themselves as respectable and normal, and importantly, how they possess character traits enabling them to become highly successful:

It wasn’t only Bob [Hare – author of the Psychopathy Checklist] who believed that a disproportionate number of psychopaths can be found in high places. In the days after Essi Viding had first mentioned the theory to me I spoke to scores of psychologists who all said exactly the same. One was Martha Stout from the Harvard Medical School and author of The Sociopath Next Door. (You may be wondering what the difference is between a psychopath and a sociopath, and the answer is, there really isn’t one. Psychologists and psychiatrists around the world tend to use the terms interchangeably.) They are everywhere, she said. They are in the crowded restaurant where you have your lunch. They are in your open-plan office. […]

‘Sociopaths love power. They love winning. If you take loving kindness out of the human brain there’s not much left except the will to win.’

‘Which means you’ll find a preponderance of them at the top of the tree?’ I said.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘The higher you go up the ladder the greater the number of sociopaths you’ll find there.’ 12

Henry Kissinger was attending this year’s Bilderberg confab just as he attends nearly every Bilderberg meeting. He has been an insider since its inception and there are few, if any, Bilderberg insiders more powerful or sociopathic than Kissinger. This superstar of Bilderberg holds the accolade for being both a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and the single greatest war criminal alive. So did those sharing a glass of wine with him at the InterAlpen Hotel stop to ask about his involvement in the overthrow of elected governments across Latin America, about the death squads and the torture rooms, or about the napalm raining down on the children of Indochina? We can only guess.

As Martha Stout explained to Ronson, those with psychopathic leaning tend to doubt that such a thing as conscience really exists in any case, or alternatively, believe that the rest of us are too restrained by it, and should instead be more relaxed in their morals like they are. A big reason, of course, why being psychopathic helps one to get ahead.

*

Aside from the official list of participants (always incomplete, but indicative nonetheless) there are a few other clues posted on the Bilderberg official website (up since 2010) that offer a glimpse of what might laughingly be described as this year’s ‘agenda’:

Back in the 1950s, when Bernhard sent out the invitations, it was to discuss “a number of problems facing western civilization”. These days, the Bilderberg Group prefers to call them “megatrends”. The megatrends on this year’s agenda include: “What next for Europe?”, “Ukraine”, “Intelligence sharing” and “Does privacy exist?”

That comes from another Charlie Skelton report but on last year’s 60th anniversary meeting in Copenhagen, when Bilderberg first officially posted its ‘agenda’. As Skelton points out:

That’s an exquisite irony: the world’s most secretive conference discussing whether privacy exists. Certainly for some it does. It’s not just birthday bunting that’s gone up in Copenhagen: there’s also a double ring of three-metre (10ft) high security fencing. The hotel is teeming with security: lithe gentlemen in loose slacks and dark glasses, trying not to kill the birthday vibe. Or anyone else. 13

This year’s “megatrends” had become fifteen “key topics for discussion”. 14Bullet points again, no details. So we are left to interpret as we might do the silently drifting spots on a radar screen. Or, after dark, upon hearing the clink of empty bottles and the unseen rustle of rummaging about the dustbin…

That ‘Greece’ floats high amongst the fifteen items hardly comes as a surprise. Nor was it surprising to learn that no actual representatives of the Greek government were invited to attend the meeting. Syriza were never any part of the Bilderberg set.

According to the list, discussion also ventured into matters concerning the ‘United Kingdom’ and ‘European Strategy’. While other “key topics for discussion” dealt with the ‘Middle East’, ‘Iran’, ‘Russia’, ‘Terrorism’, ‘Chemical Weapons Threats’ and ‘NATO’. So what can we make of these bullet points, aside from discerning the contempt which Bilderberg holds for the general public, teasing us by withholding all but this shopping list of its secret dealings, whilst making a pretence of greater openness.

Well, the consensus at Bilderberg – shared by both top globalist elites and their flunkeys alike (you only get an invite if you fit one of these categories) – consists in two main parts: a zealotry for neo-liberal economics and a partial taste (at the very least) for neo-conservative foreign policy. Of course, neo-liberalism was normalised long ago, and very much thanks to ex-Bilderberger Margaret Thatcher. For is there any self-respecting politician or media hack who is not a devout neo-liberalist these days? By contrast, neo-conservatism lost what little allure it ever held once Bush and Blair had wrung out the last drops of post-9/11 sympathy to legitimise their retaliatory slaughter of farmers in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But after Bush and Blair left office, rather than signalling an end to the bloodletting, the foreign adventuring continued unabated, initially by means of Obama’s expansion into drone warfare, and subsequently with Nato’s “kinetic action” which brought “shock and awe” first to Libya, and then thanks to covert support for our Islamist proxies, spread the ensuing chaos to Syria and into Iraq (yet again). These endless wars are now sanctioned by a new breed of ‘humanitarian bombers’ though they were mostly instigated by such avowed neo-cons as Richard Perle and David Petraeus (the convicted felon whose role was so central to the fall of Libya), both of whom were back at Bilderberg this year.

It is according to such ideologies that ordinary people are either crushed by the market’s ‘invisible hand’, or else, in more distant places, flayed by the neo-imperialist sword of “intervention”. Neo-liberalism translating into ceaseless cuts to public services and the never-ending sell-off of national assets, yet always set against the need for additional tax monies to be redirected to fund drone strikes and bombing raids against the insurgents/terrorists/despotic regimes – a single airstrike costing as much as £1 million.

Returning more specifically to consider Bilderberg’s list of fifteen items under discussion, and Greece is perhaps their most urgent priority: Syriza’s resoluteness causing a tremendous headache for the bankers and their political cronies (who make up the bigger half of every Bilderberg conference). For though Syriza refuses to sever its financial ties with Europe (for perfectly sound economic reasons), it equally refuses to submit to further punishment in the form of continuing “austerity”. Worst of all, it is gaining in popularity.

As a number establishment figures have candidly announced, it is of paramount importance that the Greeks are seen to lose in their fight against “austerity”. For a reversal would possibly trigger a domino effect: an extraordinary political realignment with the rise of genuine ‘pro-democracy’ parties across the Mediterranean. Greece is therefore a powder keg for the powers-that-be, and so ‘Grexit’, although destabilising the broader European project, appears to have become a preferred option for those who see repayment of debts as sacrosanct. What comes next for Greece, if they do not fall into line? Wasn’t this the real question behind the Bilderberg bullet point…?

Meanwhile, the ‘United Kingdom’ now presents a problem of a related but diametrically opposite kind. The danger that one of Europe’s largest economies (on paper at least) might soon vote to exit the European Union is hardly a step forward in any grander visions of globalisation. So ‘Brexit’, as it is already being called, is unlikely to be viewed so favourably as ‘Grexit’.

Otherwise, given the familiar Bilderberg mix of delegates, liberally spiced with neo-cons and military top brass, compounded by such a stack of the old enemies piled up on that list of “key topics for discussion”, oughtn’t we to presume a further push for war? Since no-one at Bilderberg is telling, we are, as always, left to conjecture (or else to think nothing more about any of it).

‘It is a frightening and huge thought,’ I [Jon Ronson] said, ‘that the ninety-nine per cent of us wandering around down here are having our lives pushed and pulled around by that psychopathic fraction up there.’

‘It is a large thought,’ she [Martha Stout] said. ‘It is a thought people don’t have very often. Because we’re raised to believe that deep down everyone has conscience.’ 15

Click here to read the full press release on the Bilderberg official website.

*

Oddly, this year’s official list of attendees was also reprinted by the Daily Mail in an article entitled “Revealed: Guestlist for secretive Bilderberg includes Osborne, Balls, BBC Trust chief, spies, bankers and royalty”. A headline which rather succinctly encapsulates who really runs the show – with Ed Balls serving the coffee apparently:

Those on the guest list this week include the heads of banking and financial giants including Deutsche Bank, Santander, AXA Group, JP Morgan, HSBC, BlackRock and Goldman Sachs.

Senior figures from around the world include Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, the President of Austria Heinz Fischer, Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel and ministers from Sweden, the US, Germany, Denmark, Switzerland and the Netherlands.

Jim Messina, a former Obama adviser who worked on David Cameron’s election winning campaign in Britain, is also on the list. [further thoughts at the end]

Guests also include Thomas Ahrenkiel, director of the Danish Intelligence Service, former European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and Nato General Secretary Jens Stolberg. [all emphasis added]

But still The Mail can’t resist the worn-out distraction about “conspiracy theorists”, adding:

Conspiracy theorists believe this is where leaders plot world domination. 16

As one of the comments posted beneath read:

There is no conspiring going on here. Just folks getting together to discuss how best to run the world for their own benefit. 17

You can read earlier reports about the previous four Bilderberg meetings in St Moritz 2011, Chantilly 2012, Watford 2013 (where I personally joined the protests) and Copenhagen 2014 by clicking on the Bilderberg tag below.

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Additional: ‘US elections’

American political adviser Jim Messina is getting credit for leading conservative British Prime Minister David Cameron to an overwhelming, if surprising victory, but he said Friday that once he comes back to the United States, he’s Hillary Clinton “all the time.”

“I’m coming home tomorrow and it’s whatever it will take to get Hillary [elected],” Messina said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program.

Bilderberg has a long history of inviting future Prime Ministers and Presidents to its conference. Thatcher in 1975 and Clinton in 1991 are the two best known examples, but there are many others. Before being elected as Canadian Prime Ministers, Pierre Trudeau (1968), Paul Martin (1996), Jean Chrétien (also 1996) and current PM Stephen Harper (2003) had all attended Bilderberg meetings, as did US President Gerald Ford (1964, 1966) and British PMs Tony Blair (1993) and Gordon Brown (1991).

This time around we have instead an election advisor, Jim Messina, who helped the Tories to victory in last month’s General Election and is suddenly linked to one of the forerunners in the 2016 campaign, Hillary Clinton. Added to which we know that the last item of Bilderberg’s stated fifteen “key topics for discussion” was ‘US Elections’. Not that Hillary is new to Bilderberg…

But we should keep in mind that Bilderberg is a cross-party event, so why put all of its eggs into one party political basket? If Hillary is the preferred choice for Democratic nomination (as it appears), then who might they choose for the red corner?

In his first major international appearance since signaling his readiness to run for office, the former governor of Florida acknowledged that some might question the setting of his speech. “One possible question which might be asked is: why is an American politician who might run for president in Berlin, Germany? And not in places like Berlin, New Hampshire, or Berlin, Iowa?

“The short answer is, this journey has other purposes.

That is taken from a Guardian report on Jeb Bush’s recent visit to Germany and his appearance in Berlin shortly after the G7 summit. It continues (a little further on):

His address to business leaders was the highlight of a visit which included discussions with politicians and policy makers. The trip was organised by a Bush family friend, former World Bank chief Robert Zoellick, who was also involved in reunification negotiations as the elder Bush’s White House adviser. 18

Two days later, his friend Robert Zoellick, now of Goldman Sachs, was at the meeting in Telfs. Zoellick holds a seat on the Bilderberg steering committee. Rumour has it that Jeb may have quietly followed him up there.

Another regular Bilderberg attendee in Telfs was Peter Thiel. Thiel, a venture capitalist and hedge fund manager, was a co-founder of PayPal and is also a major investor in Facebook. During the 2008 US Presidential elections, Thiel had endorsed Ron Paul, and then again during the 2012 elections, Thiel and the other PayPal co-founders, Luke Nosek and Scott Banister, “put their support behind the Endorse Liberty Super PAC” to elect Ron Paul. 19

Since then, Peter Thiel has switched his allegiance to Ron Paul’s son Rand:

In his Playbook newsletter Sunday, Politico’s Mike Allen reported Paul, who is considering a presidential bid in 2016, “had private sit-downs with the investor Peter Thiel and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg” while at the conference. Allen described Paul’s presence at the confab as “another sign of how far he has come since his insurgent victory as a Tea Party torch-bearer.” 20

Rand Paul, who back on April 7th announced he was running for President, is mistaken by many, especially libertarians, as a political outsider, when in fact he has been and continues to be openly backed by Peter Thiel who sits alongside José Barroso, Jean-Claude Trichet, Richard Perle, Robert Zoellick, and others, also on the Bilderberg steering committee 21.

*

Update: before, during and after Telfs 2015

On the eve of the meeting, Luke Rudkowski spoke with veteran Bilderberg reporter Mark Anderson – a very informative and insightful discussion:

Luke Rudkowski covers the high security at Telfs (including scrambled jets) and the street protests:

On the way home, Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis were confronted by Press for Truth reporter, Dan Dicks, at Innsbruck airport security checks.

Henry Kravis, the co-founder of private equity firm KKR (or Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.), is one of the wealthiest people on earth. He is a trustee of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and has been a political sponsor of both George Bush Sr. and John McCain. His wife Marie-Josée serves on the international advisory board of the Federal Reserve.

In May 2013, Henry Kravis, a member of the Steering Committee, had appointed David Petraeus as Chairman of KKR Global Institute saying, “I have long known and respected General Petraeus”:

Meanwhile, also spotted in Innsbruck was James Wolfensohn, former President of the World Bank, an honorary trustee of the Brookings Institute, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, who supposedly wasn’t there at all!

Finally, here are Dan Dicks, Luke Rudkowski and Jeff Berwick comparing the treatment they received at G7 with that at Bilderberg:

10 From the Epilogue of Eichmann in Jerusalem: A report on the Banality of Evil written by Hannah Arendt, published in 1963.

11Taken from an interview given by Errol Morris, director of the documentary “The Unknown Known” about Donald Rumsfeld, in which he discusses what was satisfying about making the film. Morris says he has always been fascinated by one of Hannah Arendt’s definitions of the phrase “The Banality of Evil,” even before her article “Eichmann in Jerusalem”:

She said that the banality of evil wasn’t the presence of something. It’s the absence of something. Something that you would expect to be there, but just isn’t. And maybe, that’s what this film is about.

12 Taken from The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry,Ch4, pp117–9, by Jon Ronson, published by Picador, 2011.

Endorse Liberty founders have so far reported spending about $3.3 million promoting [Ron] Paul by setting up two YouTube channels, constantly buying ads from Google and Facebook and StumbleUpon and building up a presence on the Web.

Throughout the last decade and longer, the news media has been leaking the story of a new kind of global technocratic leadership. Often this has revolved around talk of “Davos Man”, a new taxonomic sub-group (or rather super-group) which evokes (in my own mind at least) the image of a silhouetted yet still pinstriped figure leading our ancestors out of the primordial sludge and striding forth at the head of that catwalk procession of ever more erect hominids. Java Man, Peking Man… you know what’s coming:

Davos Man is most publicly embodied in Bill Gates, the ubiquitous chairman of the Microsoft Corporation. He appeared recently, as do all main speakers at the gathering, both in person and blown up on a huge television screen. Mutterings were heard from some techies in the hall as the giant head spoke; they find the quality of Microsoft products mediocre. But to most of the executives, he is a heroic figure, and not just because he built a huge business from scratch.

That comes from an article published by The Independent as far back as 1998, which provided one of the first reports on the annual Davos shindig in the Alps – officially known as the World Economic Forum – and from whence “Davos Man” cometh. The article tells us that:

Along the main street a snake of limousines writhes in front of the conference hall, where there are guards, police dogs, and metal detectors. Each of the 2,000 people who descend on the village need an electronic security badge to enter the hall, but the badge does more than keep out riff-raff. It has an electronic code which allows the bearer to read and send messages on an elaborate computer system, and so to arrange meetings and to cut deals – in the coffee lounges, on the ski slopes, or at the exquisite dinners whose seating plans are frequently disrupted by the press of business.1

With regards to these early sightings of Davos Man in the flesh (so to speak), Richard Sennett the author of the piece, explains how these “monarchs of capitalism [who] assembly their courtiers and meet to plot all our futures” prefer to see themselves. Like Gates, our new crop of plutocrats are “ruthless and greedy”, but unlike the older crew, they are more “flexible” with a greater “tolerance for fragmentation” (whatever that means precisely) and, most importantly, these guys are properly connected – not that the old guard wasn’t.

A more recent article published by the Financial Times (in 2011) offers, however, an alternative view of the rise of Davos Man, pointing out how “As the World Economic Forum grew in importance and prominence, so outside observers [i.e., the corporate media] began to identify a new creature – ‘Davos Man’” Although the label itself was originally intended as a pejorative, apparently:

The phrase was coined by political scientist Samuel Huntington (of “Clash of Civilisations” fame). Huntington was no fan of “Davos man”, whom he regarded as elitist and loyal only to his own financial interests and to his international peer group. The delegates at Davos, Huntington later wrote disapprovingly, “have little need for national loyalty, view national boundaries as obstacles that are thankfully vanishing, and see national governments as residues from the past whose only useful function is to facilitate the elite’s global operations.”2

This is interesting because Samuel Huntington is someone very much on the inside track. Closely connected with this same “elite” (his word), Huntington is most renowned for his forecast of a coming “Clash of Civilisations”, whilst he also co-authored a notorious report – produced by another globalist group known as the Trilateral Commission – entitled “The Crisis of Democracy”, in which Huntington frets about future problems arising from “an excess of democracy” in the western world. The solution, he (and his fellows) advise, is to ensure we (Homo plebeians) are far too disorientated and beleaguered to organise any serious or sustained challenge against the powers-that-be.

Here is what Noam Chomsky wrote about the Trilateral Commission and Huntington’s report back in 1981:

The Trilateral Commission was founded at the initiative of David Rockefeller in 1973. Its members are drawn from the three components of the world of capitalist democracy: the United States, Western Europe, and Japan. Among them are the heads of major corporations and banks, partners in corporate law firms, Senators, Professors of international affairs – the familiar mix in extra-governmental groupings. Along with the 1940s project of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), directed by a committed “trilateralist” and with numerous links to the Commission, the project constitutes the first major effort at global planning since the War-Peace Studies program of the CFR during World War II. […]

The Trilateral Commission has issued one major book-length report, namely, The Crisis of Democracy (Michel Crozier, Samuel Huntington, and Joji Watanuki, 1975). Given the intimate connections between the Commission and the Carter Administration, the study is worth careful attention, as an indication of the thinking that may well lie behind its domestic policies, as well as the policies undertaken in other industrial democracies in the coming years. […]

The report argues that what is needed in the industrial democracies “is a greater degree of moderation in democracy” to overcome the “excess of democracy” of the past decade. “The effective operation of a democratic political system usually requires some measure of apathy and noninvolvement on the part of some individuals and groups.” This recommendation recalls the analysis of Third World problems put forth by other political thinkers of the same persuasion, for example, Ithiel Pool (then chairman of the Department of Political Science at MIT), who explained some years ago that in Vietnam, the Congo, and the Dominican Republic, “order depends on somehow compelling newly mobilized strata to return to a measure of passivity and defeatism… At least temporarily the maintenance of order requires a lowering of newly acquired aspirations and levels of political activity.” The Trilateral recommendations for the capitalist democracies are an application at home of the theories of “order” developed for subject societies of the Third World.

In Short, “The Crisis of Democracy” provides a blueprint for our current race to the bottom and politico-economic subjugation. As Chomsky details at the end of the same article:

The crucial task is “to restore the prestige and authority of central government institutions, and to grapple with the immediate economic challenges.” The demands on government must be reduced and we must “restore a more equitable relationship between government authority and popular control.” The press must be reined. If the media do not enforce “standards of professionalism,” then “the alternative could well be regulation by the government” – a distinction without a difference, since the policy-oriented and technocratic intellectuals, the commissars themselves, are the ones who will fix these standards and determine how well they are respected. Higher education should be related “to economic and political goals,” and if it is offered to the masses, “a program is then necessary to lower the job expectations of those who receive a college education.” No challenge to capitalist institutions can be considered, but measures should be taken to improve working conditions and work organization so that workers will not resort to “irresponsible blackmailing tactics.” In general, the prerogatives of the nobility must be restored and the peasants reduced to the apathy that becomes them.

This is the ideology of the liberal wing of the state capitalist ruling elite, and, it is reasonable to assume, its members who now staff the national executive in the United States….3

You can read my own fuller critique of Huntington’s “The Crisis of Democracy” in the lower half of this earlier post.

Huntington is himself well connected and part of the big club which Davos is just a smaller and supposedly more cuddly offshoot. So all this brouhaha about the rights and wrongs of Davos Man is really nothing more or less than internal bickering about the proper way for plutocrats to tyrannise. Naturally, the Financial Times are keen to play up this supposed schism (just as chocolate manufacturers are keen to bring out tantalisingly novel candy bars), and especially so when provided with the opportunity to pour scorn on an editorial, “In Praise of Davos Man”, published by their immediate competitors at The Economist. Oddly, the author of the piece which challenges The Economist‘s “paean to Davos Man”, Gideon Rachman, concedes in his own article (parenthetically) “I was working for The Economist at the time, but did not write the editorial in question”. He might just as well have added “Splitters! Splitters…!”

Which brings me at last to the main point of my own piece – that Davos Man plus Trilateralist Man [Left Twix and Right Twix, as the advert puts it] are gathering again and under cover of that more perennial darkness which cloaks the premier confab of all globalist confabs – the annual Bilderberg meeting, which kicks off tomorrow in Copenhagen. Founded in 1954, it is precisely sixty years to the weekend since “the great and the good” first secretly convened at the Hotel de Bilderberg in Oosterbeek in the Netherlands.

Sixty years is a long time in (geo-)politics, and so the poisonous fruits of their clandestine bargaining are scattered and rotting all around – from the banking crisis and “austerity” to mass surveillance; and from dismantlement of the NHS to privatisation of the post office (and everything else besides). Neo-liberal policies that have opened the way to the success of racist Marine Le Pen’s Front National and to the lesser gains of neo-Nazis Golden Dawn in Greece, combined with directly neo-conservative assaults that have deliberately aided the spread of Islamist fundamentalism and inflamed wars across the Middle East and beyond. This has all occurred under Bilderberg’s watch – and yet Bilderberg takes little blame, because they are unaccountable. The media makes sure they remain so.

Last year I joined the protests when the Bilderbergers met at Watford and witnessed for myself the enormous state protection afforded this “private meeting”. There were an estimated three thousand of us coralled within the ‘free speech paddock’ staring out across a canal and about half a mile of rolling Hertfordshire parkland to the hotel on the hill. A steel cordon had been erected in the distance, just to make sure. As a helicopter buzzed overhead, the police and G4S security guards all faced us, although the criminals were behind them of course – Henry Kissinger, the world’s greatest living war criminal, enjoying five-star hospitality and the chance to impart wisdom to the likes of Peter Mandelson, George Osbourne, Ed Balls — there was also a surprise appearance by our illustrious leader David Cameron.

I shot the video below, which features activist Charlie Skelton and Labour MP Michael Meacher speaking at Watford:

This year I can’t make it and so will look out for analysis from across the alternative media, keeping an eye out for Charlie Skelton in particular, who will be reopening his annual Bilderblog. Here are a few extracts from Skelton’s first article of this summer, in which he pries into the Bilderberg connection to the Transatlantic trade deal known as TAFTA (and also TTIP). He begins:

Next week, at the Marriott Hotel in Copenhagen, the annual trade and policy summit held by the Bilderberg Group will throw open its doors for three days of top level talks, from May 29th to June 1st. I say “throw open its doors”… the doors will remain, as ever, firmly closed to the public and press. Unless you happen to own a newspaper, or run a publishing conglomerate, or be the Executive Chairman of Google, chances are you’re not going.

It’s remarkable how many bank bosses and corporate CEOs manage to clear their diary, every year, for a full three days of conferencing at Bilderberg. Last year, BP sent its Group Chief Executive, the Michelin Group sent its CEO, while HSBC was represented by both the Group Chairman and the Vice Chairman. From Goldman Sachs came two board members, including their Vice Chairman. And Royal Dutch Shell left a skeleton crew back at headquarters: the company sent its Chairman, CEO, and CFO – and in case that wasn’t enough, they also sent along a director, Josef Ackermann. Who’s also on the board of Investor AB, the £20 billion asset management company. Which also sent its CEO and Chairman. You get the picture.

All this corporate brass spending three days conferencing with media moguls and billionaire investors wouldn’t matter so much, but for the fact that quite a few of the participants who get locked away with them are politicians. And senior politicians at that.

In 2013, the Bilderberg conference was attended by seven Finance Ministers, three Foreign Ministers, two deputy Prime Ministers, and two serving Prime Ministers: Mark Rutte, the PM of Holland, and our very own David Cameron. With them: the President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso; EU Commissioner, Viviane Reding; the head of the IMF, Christine Lagarde; and various other politicians and policymakers.

He ends:

For now, if we want transparency at Bilderberg, it’s going to have to be provided by the politicians. Luckily, many of them who go to Bilderberg are avowed champions of transparency. Like David Cameron (Bilderberg 2008, 2013) who launched a war on out-of-control lobbying in a speech back in 2010, when he attacked the “far-too-cosy relationship between politics, government, business and money”.

In that speech, Cameron described lobbying as “the next big scandal waiting to happen.” At Bilderberg, that scandal happens every year. This year, it’s happening in Copenhagen, at the Marriott Hotel, from May 29th to June 1st.4

Click here to read Charlie Skelton’s full article, in which he points to the many conflicts of interest that arise in light of TTIP and the surrounding secrecy of Bilderberg.

We also now have this year’s official (and thus almost certainly incomplete) Bilderberg attendee list. Reading down, it quickly becomes evident that this is more than just an out-of-control lobbying group (as bad as that is). So here is just a small selection of famous (or not) names and associations which are indicative of a broader agenda:

Victor Halberstadt – Professor of Economics at Leiden University

Yiping Huang – Professor of Economics at National School of Development, Peking University

Christine Lagarde – Managing Director, International Monetary Fund

Benoît Coeuré – Member of the Executive Board, European Central Bank

Stephen Poloz – Governor of the Bank of Canada

H.R.H. Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands

H.M. the Queen of Spain

And then more worryingly, I feel:

Anders Fogh Rasmussen – Secretary General of NATO

Gen. David Petraeus (as Chairman of KKR Global Institute)

Eugene Rumer – Senior Associate and Director of the Russia Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Back in December, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh wrote an article questioning the Obama administration’s claims that Assad had crossed a “red line” after launching a chemical attack on Ghouta, an eastern suburb of Damascus. In his report, Hersh explained how:

Barack Obama did not tell the whole story this autumn when he tried to make the case that Bashar al-Assad was responsible for the chemical weapons attack near Damascus on 21 August. In some instances, he omitted important intelligence, and in others he presented assumptions as facts. Most significant, he failed to acknowledge something known to the US intelligence community: that the Syrian army is not the only party in the country’s civil war with access to sarin, the nerve agent that a UN study concluded – without assessing responsibility – had been used in the rocket attack. In the months before the attack, the American intelligence agencies produced a series of highly classified reports, culminating in a formal Operations Order – a planning document that precedes a ground invasion – citing evidence that the al-Nusra Front, a jihadi group affiliated with al-Qaida, had mastered the mechanics of creating sarin and was capable of manufacturing it in quantity. When the attack occurred al-Nusra should have been a suspect, but the administration cherry-picked intelligence to justify a strike against Assad.

The article entitled “Whose sarin?” was published by the London Review of Books on December 19th.

Hersh has more recently produced a follow up article that provides additional evidence supporting the view that Ghouta attack was most probably launched by al-Qaeda factions in Syria:

Obama’s change of mind [decision not to attack Syria] had its origins at Porton Down, the defence laboratory in Wiltshire. British intelligence had obtained a sample of the sarin used in the 21 August attack and analysis demonstrated that the gas used didn’t match the batches known to exist in the Syrian army’s chemical weapons arsenal. The message that the case against Syria wouldn’t hold up was quickly relayed to the US joint chiefs of staff. The British report heightened doubts inside the Pentagon; the joint chiefs were already preparing to warn Obama that his plans for a far-reaching bomb and missile attack on Syria’s infrastructure could lead to a wider war in the Middle East. As a consequence the American officers delivered a last-minute caution to the president, which, in their view, eventually led to his cancelling the attack.

Click here to watch the interview and read a full transcript on the Democracy Now! website.

In his recent article [also published April 7th] entitled “The Red Line and the Rat Line”, Hersh implicates Turkey as possible collaborators in this and other chemical attacks in Syria:

For months there had been acute concern among senior military leaders and the intelligence community about the role in the war of Syria’s neighbours, especially Turkey. Prime Minister Recep Erdoğan was known to be supporting the al-Nusra Front, a jihadist faction among the rebel opposition, as well as other Islamist rebel groups. ‘We knew there were some in the Turkish government,’ a former senior US intelligence official, who has access to current intelligence, told me, ‘who believed they could get Assad’s nuts in a vice by dabbling with a sarin attack inside Syria – and forcing Obama to make good on his red line threat.’ […]

A series of chemical weapon attacks in March and April 2013 was investigated over the next few months by a special UN mission to Syria. A person with close knowledge of the UN’s activity in Syria told me that there was evidence linking the Syrian opposition to the first gas attack, on 19 March in Khan Al-Assal, a village near Aleppo. In its final report in December, the mission said that at least 19 civilians and one Syrian soldier were among the fatalities, along with scores of injured. It had no mandate to assign responsibility for the attack, but the person with knowledge of the UN’s activities said: ‘Investigators interviewed the people who were there, including the doctors who treated the victims. It was clear that the rebels used the gas. It did not come out in public because no one wanted to know.’ […]

The full extent of US co-operation with Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar in assisting the rebel opposition in Syria has yet to come to light. The Obama administration has never publicly admitted to its role in creating what the CIA calls a ‘rat line’, a back channel highway into Syria. The rat line, authorised in early 2012, was used to funnel weapons and ammunition from Libya via southern Turkey and across the Syrian border to the opposition. Many of those in Syria who ultimately received the weapons were jihadists, some of them affiliated with al-Qaida. (The DNI [Director of National Intelligence] spokesperson said: ‘The idea that the United States was providing weapons from Libya to anyone is false.’)

And “the rat line”? Well, that brings Hersh back to the Benghazi attack of September 2012 which led to the death of US ambassador, Christopher Stevens, and three others. He draws attention [halfway down the following paragraph] to “a highly classified annex” to the Senate Intelligence Committee report on the incident – distribution of which was apparently “limited to the staff aides who wrote the report and to the eight ranking members of Congress”:

In January, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a report on the assault by a local militia in September 2012 on the American consulate and a nearby undercover CIA facility in Benghazi, which resulted in the death of the US ambassador, Christopher Stevens, and three others. The report’s criticism of the State Department for not providing adequate security at the consulate, and of the intelligence community for not alerting the US military to the presence of a CIA outpost in the area, received front-page coverage and revived animosities in Washington, with Republicans accusing Obama and Hillary Clinton of a cover-up. A highly classified annex to the report, not made public, described a secret agreement reached in early 2012 between the Obama and Erdoğan administrations. It pertained to the rat line. By the terms of the agreement, funding came from Turkey, as well as Saudi Arabia and Qatar; the CIA, with the support of MI6, was responsible for getting arms from Gaddafi’s arsenals into Syria. A number of front companies were set up in Libya, some under the cover of Australian entities. Retired American soldiers, who didn’t always know who was really employing them, were hired to manage procurement and shipping. The operation was run by David Petraeus, the CIA director who would soon resign when it became known he was having an affair with his biographer. (A spokesperson for Petraeus denied the operation ever took place.) […]

The annex didn’t tell the whole story of what happened in Benghazi before the attack, nor did it explain why the American consulate was attacked. ‘The consulate’s only mission was to provide cover for the moving of arms,’ the former intelligence official, who has read the annex, said. ‘It had no real political role.’

Click here to read the full version of Seymour Hersh’s latest article [April 6th] also published in the London Review of Books.

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty or justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary.

At one point in the meeting, during a tense exchange about contingency plans for dog-walkers, [police Chief Inspector] Rhodes let slip that Operation Discuss (the codename for the Bilderberg security operation) had been up and running for 18 months. Residents and journalists shared an intake of breath. “Eighteen months?” The reason for all the secrecy? “Terrorism”.

After 59 years of Bilderberg guests scuttling about in the shadows, ducking lenses and dodging the news, that’s the rationale we’re given? The same rationale, presumably, is behind the Great Wall of Watford, a concrete-and-wire security fence encircling the hotel. As ugly as it is unnecessary, it looks like the kind of thing you throw yourself against in a stalag before being machine-gunned from a watchtower. Appropriately fascistic, you might say, if you regard fascism as “the merger of corporate and government power”, as Mussolini put it.

The same threat of “terrorism” was used to justify the no-pedestrian, no-stopping zones near the venue. The police laid out their logic: they had “no specific intelligence” regarding a terror threat. However, in recent incidents, such as Boston and Woolwich, there had been no intelligence prior to the attack. Therefore the lack of any threat of a terror attack fitted exactly the profile of a terror attack. The lack of a threat was a threat. Welcome to 1984.

So writes Charlie Skelton, who is again one of the only mainstream journalists reporting from this year’s Bilderberg meeting which officially opened yesterday. Skelton, who also has a career as comedy script writer, adding with typically understated irony:

The audience was an odd mix. Half were residents from around the venue worried about the possibility of tyre-damage to a strip of lawn; the other half were journalists from around the world worried about the geopolitical implications of a conference at which BAE, Stratfor and General Petraeus will be discussing “Africa’s challenges”.

Both halves were worried about the funding for the gigantic security operation. The police assured sceptical residents that the conference would be “cost-neutral” for Hertfordshire, thanks in part to a “donation” from the conference organisers. This “donation” will have come, in part at least, from the Bilderberg Association, a registered UK charity that takes “donations” from BP and Goldman Sachs.

So, in a sense, the Herts police are doing charity work for Goldman Sachs. Which must be a comfort for the executives of Goldman Sachs attending the conference: the vice-chairman, a director and the chairman of Goldman Sachs International. They’ve got their charity team out patrolling, keeping the lenses at bay.2

Click here to read his full article entitled “Bilderberg 2013: welcome to 1984” published by the Guardian on Wednesday 5th.

Here is Skelton again reporting a few days earlier on his same Bilderblog, and on this occasion delving deeper into Bilderberg’s wonderful and little known works of charity whilst also pointing out how the timing of this year’s get-together happens to coincide with a long overdue scandal about political lobbying:

If you’ve been wondering who picks up the tab for this gigantic conference and security operation, the answer arrived last week, on a pdf file sent round by Anonymous. It showed that the Bilderberg conference is paid for, in the UK, by an officially registered charity: the Bilderberg Association (charity number 272706).

According to its Charity Commission accounts, the association meets the “considerable costs” of the conference when it is held in the UK, which include hospitality costs and the travel costs of some delegates. Presumably the charity is also covering the massive G4S security contract. Fortunately, the charity receives regular five-figure sums from two kindly supporters of its benevolent aims: Goldman Sachs and BP. The most recent documentary proof of this is from 2008 (pdf), since when the charity has omitted its donors’ names (pdf) from its accounts.

Public education! From an organisation that hides its face in shame behind armed guards and steel cordons. Skelton adds:

If you are concerned about transparency or lobbying, Watford is the place to be next weekend. Whether the delegates reach out to the press and public remains to be seen. Don’t forget, they’ve got their hands full carrying out the good works of Bilderberg. The conference is, after all, run as a charity.

A charity which specialises in helping those most in need of a little corporate lobbying:

It’s a remarkable spectacle – one of nature’s wonders – and the most exciting thing to happen to Watford since that roundabout on the A412 got traffic lights. The area round the hotel is in lockdown: locals are having to show their passports to get to their homes. It’s exciting too for the delegates. The CEO of Royal Dutch Shell will hop from his limo, delighted to be spending three solid days in policy talks with the head of HSBC, the president of Dow Chemical, his favourite European finance ministers and US intelligence chiefs. The conference is the highlight of every plutocrat’s year and has been since 1954. The only time Bilderberg skipped a year was 1976, after the group’s founding chairman, Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, was caught taking bribes from Lockheed Martin.

Here is the definition of “bribe”: Something, such as money or a favor, offered or given to a person in a position of trust to influence that person’s views or conduct. So surely then, every form of lobbying is a kind of bribery.

Just imagine, for example, if my college discovered that I or any of my colleagues were accepting cash payments (or other ‘gifts’) from students – they would rightly sack us on the spot. Would it make any difference if I told them that the students were only “lobbying me” about their coursework, or would it be deemed more acceptable if I had “registered their interests”? Of course it wouldn’t! So in what way is lobbying not bribery?

That said, some kinds of bribery are more prosecutable than others. So was Prince Bernhard ever criminally charged after accepting a $1.1 million bribe from Lockheed? Of course not, after all he’s Prince Bernhard. Although apparently he was forced “to step down from several public positions and was forbidden to wear his military uniforms again.”4 Rough justice.

Back to Skelton’s comparative analysis of the current goings on at the Grove hotel to the on-going parliamentary scandal:

It may seem odd, as our own lobbying scandal unfolds, amid calls for a statutory register of lobbyists, that a bunch of our senior politicians will be holed up for three days in luxurious privacy with the chairmen and CEOs of hedge funds, tech corporations and vast multinational holding companies, with zero press oversight. “It runs contrary to [George] Osborne’s public commitment in 2010 to ‘the most radical transparency agenda the country has ever seen’,” says Michael Meacher MP. Meacher describes the conference as “an anti-democratic cabal of the leaders of western market capitalism meeting in private to maintain their own power and influence outside the reach of public scrutiny”.

But, to be fair, is “public scrutiny” really necessary when our politicians are tucked safely away with so many responsible members of JP Morgan’s international advisory board? There’s always the group chief executive of BP on hand to make sure they do not get unduly lobbied. And if he is not in the room, keeping an eye out, then at least one of the chairmen of Novartis, Zurich Insurance, Fiat or Goldman Sachs International will be around.

Charlie Skelton is doing an excellent job again this year, and when, later today, I finally make it down to Watford myself, perhaps I’ll happen to run into him. If not then I’d certainly like to express my gratitude to him here before I leave.

I must also say that it is quite pleasing to see others in the media finally picking up the gauntlet and taking serious note of this most extraordinary annual general meeting for globalisation. There was even a surprisingly balanced report on Channel 4 news broadcast yesterday. You can watch it here:

This year’s official list(which is reliably unreliable) has been released and includes amongst many the following names of particular interest:

George Osborne – Chancellor of the Exchequer

Ed Balls – Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer

Tim Geithner – Former US Secretary of the Treasury

Christine Lagarde – Head of IMF

Peter Sutherland – Chairman of Goldman Sachs

Mario Monti – Former appointed Prime Minister of Italy

Ken Clarke – who is listed merely as “Member of Parliament”

Peter Mandelson – listed as Chairman of Global Council and also Lazard International

José Barroso – President, European Commission

Richard Perle – neo con, veteran warmonger and well known member of PNAC

Henry Kissinger – listed only as “Chairman of Kissinger Associates”

last, but certainly not least, I notice the recently disgraced Gen David Petraeus – why he, we might wonder?

And so to Watford… I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for Mark Carney who has attended previous meetings at St Moritz (2011) and Chantilly (2012) and is about to replace Mervyn King as the next Governor of the Bank of England.

On Wednesday [March 20th] Democracy Now! spoke with investigative journalist Dahr Jamail (currently working for Al Jazeera). Jamail provided a detailed review of the terrible conditions in Iraq, ten years after the US-led “liberation”; a campaign which began with the notorious “shock and awe” assault and one that has directly resulted in more than a million deaths (which include over a hundred thousand documented civilian deaths so far).

With a puppet president, Nouri al-Maliki, installed, the US occupation is now being quietly maintained by the presence of thousands of military contractors, whilst meanwhile the Iraqi population is the target of terrorist attacks on an almost daily basis as sectarian violence spirals out of control – 65 people were killed, and hundreds wounded by bomb blasts in Baghdad just on the day of the anniversary itself.

What Dahr Jamail describes is nothing less than a hell on earth where human rights abuses are rampant, and the use of indefinite detention and execution is commonplace:

… the situation in Iraq today, 10 years after the U.S.-led invasion and occupation began, it’s just utter devastation. It’s a situation where, overall, we can say that Iraq is a failed state. The economy is in a state of crisis, perpetual crisis, that began far back with the institution of the 100 Bremer orders during—under the Coalition Provisional Authority, the civil government set up to run Iraq during the first year of the occupation. And it’s been in crisis ever since.

The average Iraqi is just barely getting by. And how can they get by when there’s virtually no security across large swathes of country to this day, where, you know, as we see in the headlines recently, even when there’s not these dramatic, spectacular days of dozens of people being killed by bombs across Baghdad and other parts of Iraq, on any given day there’s assassinations, there’s detentions, there’s abductions and people being disappeared and kidnapped?

First of all, we have a situation where detentions across Iraq, primarily in Sunni-dominated parts of Baghdad, as well as in areas like Fallujah, predominantly Sunni cities, where people are being detained, en masse at times, nightly home raids, same type of stuff that the U.S. military used when they were in Iraq. And then the types of torture being described coming out of the prisons is truly horrific: people being hung by their ankles for days at a time while their heads are in buckets of water on the ground; people having their hands tied behind their backs and then hung from their hands for sometimes days at a time; electrical shock being used on people’s limbs, on their genitals, on their tongues; men being raped by broom handles as well as bottles; women in prison being raped. I spoke with one woman released just over a week ago at this point, talking about how she had been in prison for four years and was raped repeatedly by Iraqi forces. [There are] other types of techniques being used—and again, all of this comes back to the types of workings of Colonel James Steele … [more about Steele in a moment]

But the types of torture is ongoing. It’s rampant. It’s one of the driving factors as to why we’re seeing massive Friday protests now, well into the three month, across Al Anbar province and the Adhamiyah district of Baghdad, where Sunnis are demanding a halt for the detentions, a halt of the so-called Article 4, which is the legislation passed and being used in the Iraqi government that—basically where they took a page out of the Bush playbook of giving them carte blanche to arrest anybody for any reasons under the guise of terrorism charges, of suspected terrorism, and then they can be held indefinitely. I spoke with people both at Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch about this, and they said one of the problems now is, it’s the detentions and the being held secretly is so rampant now by the Iraqi security forces that there isn’t really even a need for secret prisons anymore. Remember a ways back, we had—it all came out that there were secret Maliki prisons. Well, now, today in Iraq, they’re referring—they’re being referred to by a lot of Iraqis as “secret prisoners,” because people are being detained, their families aren’t—there’s no law requiring that the families be notified, nobody knows where these people are. They can be held in any prison anywhere in broad daylight, because no name is being registered anywhere. So, literally, we have untold numbers of people being detained, being treated horrifically.

Asked whether he agreed with many people that the problems in Iraq are “not so much the result of the U.S. invasion but rather sectarian war between Sunnis and Shias”, Jamail’s response is unequivocal:

I don’t agree. I think all of this is a direct result of—either direct or indirectly a result of the U.S. invasion and occupation and the strategy applied. I mean, we saw something come out just last week in a joint investigation of BBC Arabic and The Guardian, which gave hard evidence, insider evidence, of the machinations of the U.S. using retired Lieutenant Colonel James Steele, infamous during the Reagan administration of orchestrating so many of the death squads in Central America along with Negroponte. Well, Negroponte happened to be the U.S. ambassador to Iraq for some of the occupation and, of course, brought in his old buddy James Steele to set up the same types of tactics, the detentions, the types of torture techniques that we’re seeing rampant across today—across Iraq today, the blatant attempts to foment sectarian violence, sort of a divide-and-conquer policy. Even Rumsfeld, former Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld under Bush, back around 2006, 2007, referred to kind of casually using the “Salvador Option” in Iraq, and that’s precisely what he was describing.

Click here to read the full transcript or to watch the interview on the Democracy Now! website.

Friday’s Democracy Now! offered a more extended profile of Colonel James Steele, investigating his role in Iraq and formerly in El Salvador, where he had previously coordinated death squads and torture centres. Also heavily implicated are General David Petraeus and Donald Rumsfeld.*

In the second part of the same interview [from Wednesday 20th], Jamail reported on another side of the horrors in today’s Iraq. A huge increase in birth defects and cancers, most especially plaguing the city of Fallujah, which are a direct consequence of the earlier US bombardment with the widespread use of weapons containing white phosphorous and depleted uranium (DU):

Overall, the country has seen a massive increase in cancer rates from the 1991 Gulf War up to present, even according to official Iraqi government statistics. In 1991, for example, there were 40 registered cases of cancer out of 100,000 Iraqis. By 1995, four years after that war, that number had jumped to 800 out of 100,000 Iraqis. And then—by 2005, that number had doubled— The most recent statistic, I’ll end with, before I get into Fallujah. And what these images are showing is that in 2005 we saw 1,600 Iraqis with cancer out of 100,000, so a massive escalation that continues.

And going on to Fallujah, because I wrote about this a year ago, and then I returned to the city again this trip, we are seeing an absolute crisis of congenital malformations of newborn. There is one doctor, a pediatrician named Dr. Samira Alani, working on this crisis in the city. She’s the only person there registering cases. And she’s seeing horrific birth defects. I mean, these are extremely hard to look at. They’re extremely hard to bear witness to. But it’s something that we all need to pay attention to, because of the amount of depleted uranium used by the U.S. military during both of their brutal attacks on the city of 2004, as well as other toxic munitions like white phosphorus, among other things.

And so, what this has generated is, from 2004 up to this day, we are seeing a rate of congenital malformations in the city of Fallujah that has surpassed even that in the aftermath of—in the wake of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that were—that nuclear bombs were dropped on at the end of World War II. So, Dr. Samira Alani actually visited with doctors in Japan, comparing statistics, and found that the amount of congenital malformations in Fallujah is 14 times greater than the same rate measured in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan in the aftermath of the nuclear bombings.

These types of birth defects, she said—there are types of congenital malformations that she said they don’t even have medical terms for, that some of the things they’re seeing, they’ve never seen before. They’re not in any of the books or any of the scientific literature that they have access to. She said it’s common now in Fallujah for newborns to come out with massive multiple systemic defects, immune problems, massive central nervous system problems, massive heart problems, skeletal disorders, baby’s being born with two heads, babies being born with half of their internal organs outside of their bodies, cyclops babies literally with one eye—really, really, really horrific nightmarish types of birth defects. And it is ongoing.

The images in this report are so absolutely shocking that I have decided not to embed the video, but if you would like to hear more of what Dahr Jamail had to say or to read the full transcript then click here to watch on the Democracy Now! website.

Click here to read my own earlier post about the use of white phosphorous and DU in Fallujah.

On Friday [March 15th], a day that marked the second anniversary of the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Democracy Now! also interviewed Rim Turkmani, an astrophysicist and member of the Syrian Civil Democratic Alliance, who had come to New York to meet with Security Council members in order to discuss possible political solutions to the developing crisis in Syria. This is part of what Rim Turkmani said:

The uprising started as a nonviolent uprising; however, because of the extreme violence, you know, the way the regime responded to this uprising, things developed very quickly into a very violent movement. However, there have been external actors who were supporting the arming of the opposition, and unfortunately that fueled the violence, increased dramatically the number of casualties, and turned the whole thing into more of a war, rather than a revolution. So nowadays, people don’t talk about democracy anymore. You don’t talk about the original rights and freedoms, which the people two years ago went to the street to protest for. We’re talking more about ending a war.

And I see all these statements, you know, from France and Britain, and even the U.S., are very contradicting and saying that we want to arm the rebels; however, we want a political solution. I mean, for me, a political solution means a peaceful solution. Peace can only be reached through peaceful ways, peaceful means, and can’t be reached through fueling the violence. So, I don’t think their efforts will help in calming the situation or dropping the number of casualties in the country. […]

It’s more of a geopolitical struggle, really, over Syria than responding to the needs of the people. I am a member of the opposition, as well. All [of] my group, very active inside Syria, is in opposition, but it’s a nonviolent opposition. That is very clear in its aim to reach democracy. However, we don’t reach any—we don’t get any support. We are—there’s systematic efforts to marginalize people like us inside Syria and focus only on the armed rebels. And they are the ones now who are stealing all the headlines. Now, why? Because, yes, there are certain actors, regional and international, who see this as a proxy war, and it’s an opportunity to fight their international opponents. It’s a struggle over Syria, over power, and the Syrians are falling victims to that.

I cannot find this clip uploaded on youtube but you can read the full transcript or watch the interview on the Democracy Now! website by clicking here.

Obviously it was the Bush-Cheney administration who are most responsible for the campaign against Iraq, although the Obama administration has nevertheless been complicit in the on-going chaos; the US occupation now secured by the stay-behind presence of those thousands of military contractors, with a completely blind eye turned to the brutality of the Maliki regime. Meanwhile, and with Iraq already in ruins, Obama is once more talking up the need for “humanitarian intervention” in neighbouring Syria. A conflict that has been allowed to escalate in part thanks to American covert support for terrorist groups.

In an excellent week of broadcasts, Democracy Now! also welcomed freelance foreign correspondent Reese Erlich to talk more specifically about US and Saudi Arabian involvement in the Syrian conflict:

What I found was that the Saudi government and wealthy Saudis are involved in arming Syrian rebels, the most ultraconservative, ultrareligious groups, such as al-Nusra, and that hundreds of Saudis are infiltrating across the borders from Jordan and Turkey and going to fight with these extremist groups in Syria. […]

Well, the Saudis want to see a pro-Saudi government emerge. The analysts I spoke to in Saudi Arabia point to what they call the Yemen model, where there was an Arab Spring uprising, the head of the government was replaced, but a pro-Western, pro-Saudi general replaced the old guy. So, they’d love to see that happen in Syria. But as my sources pointed out, it’s not going to happen, because Syria is very, very different from Yemen.

And in the case of the U.S., the U.S.—you know, the debate in the U.S. is whether—well, shall we bomb them? Shall we create a no-fly zone and arm the rebels and take a more militant stand? Or shall we continue kind of the Obama policies of secretly arming the—and covertly arming and training the guerrillas? The problem is, the reason this has not been resolved, as pointed out to me by a Muslim Brotherhood leader that I interviewed in Istanbul, is that the U.S. hasn’t found a leader that it can trust to pursue its interests. If you recall, in the case of Iraq or Afghanistan, there was a guy the U.S. promoted as the new democrat, supposedly, who turned out to be otherwise. But they haven’t found that guy yet in Syria, and that’s one of the reasons that they’re taking a less than militant stand in support of the Syrian rebels.

In the same roundtable interview, Rim Turkmani added:

As we all know, Saudi Arabia is not a democratic country. The uprising started to reach a democratic Syria. So, I don’t have faith in any undemocratic country to support democratic transition inside Syria. I’m not surprised that they’re supporting the armed rebels and increasing the level of violence in Syria. However, we are very confident that violence never, ever leads to democracy. So, as much as I oppose the regime, my group opposes the regime, we oppose also these efforts from Saudi Arabia to turn Syria into a jihadi land. I mean, the Syrians are—their mentality is very, very different from like the jihadi extreme Muslims’ mentality, and I think they will find it very difficult to market their ideas inside Syria. However, the violence is giving them the right environment, fertile environment, for such ideology to spread. […]

And you heard even the U.K. and the U.S., even though they’re supporting a little bit the arming, they’re still talking about a political solution. A political solution means that we have to talk to all these armed people, all the armed groups, and bring them to a negotiation table. I trust we can bring the Syrians. We can bring those who defected from the army or those who thought they were carrying arms to defend their families. However, the jihadists are going to be impossible. They are going to be the real obstacle to any peace process in Syria. Their cause is global. It’s not for democracy, certainly. Even if the regime falls tonight, they’re going to continue their fight. They are not interested in any negotiations and any peace deal. And their threat is not going to be contained inside Syria. It’s certainly going to affect the whole region. This is why we have to act very quickly to end this war and bring together a peaceful solution for all the Syrians. It has to be all-inclusive, to bring all the Syrians into a negotiation table to reach a peaceful solution towards a democratic Syria. We’re not interested in any project that doesn’t lead eventually to a democratic country.

Click here to read the full transcript or to watch the interview on the Democracy Now! website.

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Additional:

Mike Prysner joined the US Army when he was 17, between his junior and senior years in high school. He left for basic training in June 2001 and was assigned to the 10th Mountain Division in Fort Drum, NY. In March 2003, his company was attached to the 173rd Airborne Brigade to take part in the initial invasion of Iraq. This is an edited version of a powerful speech he delivered at the 2008 “Winter Soldier” in Maryland. Testimony of what was really going on in Iraq:

Mike Prysner was also one of the speakers at the event “Speaking Truth to Power: a permanent state of war” on April 9, 2011 in Asheville, NC:

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*Click here to watch “James Steele: America’s Mystery Man in Iraq”, a 15-month investigation made by the Guardian and BBC Arabic and produced by Maggie O’Kane [who gave an extended interview about the film on Democracy Now! on Friday 22nd].

In 1791, the Father of Utilitarianism and ardent social reformer Jeremy Bentham published blueprints for a wholly new design of prisons. Called the Panopticon, from observe (-opticon) all (pan-), the design, which involved a circular annulus of cells surrounding a central lodge, allowed the guards to keep an eye on all of the inmates, and importantly, without them, in turn, being aware of when they were being watched.

Bentham had big plans for his design, suggesting that aspects of the concept might usefully be applied to the construction of hospitals, schools and workhouses.

One century ago:

H.G. Wells was the father of a good many utopias. He spent the greater part of his creative life planning the shape of future societies. One of his most complete visions is laid out in a novel entitled simply A Modern Utopia (and published 1905). The story goes that two travellers walking in the Swiss Alps suddenly discover themselves in a parallel world. A new world that is Earth (at least geographically and biologically speaking) but one where civilisation has been reconstructed on altogether more Wellsian principles.

The inhabitants of this world are guaranteed housing, food and basic essentials. Even the unemployed are provided with a minimum wage, this safety net granted as “workfare” rather than “welfare”, with its recipients being coerced into work for the greater good of the state. In this vision of Wellsian meritocracy, the total measure of individual status depends solely upon earned income: the citizens of the new society regarding being broke as “clear evidence of unworthiness”.

Meanwhile criminal types and drug-users are given very short shrift. Removed from the main body of society and placed on high security prison islands, they are also sexually segregated to ensure that such poor genetic stock can never again pollute the otherwise healthy gene-pool.

Central to this alternative civilisation, the two explorers learn, there is a world-government (Wells never can resist the idea) made possible by a monumental database, with information stored on a card-index system housed in Paris. And Wells says that “Such a record is inevitable if a Modern Utopia is to be achieved.” But of course, what Wells could not foretell was how quickly technology would render the card-index system obsolete and make the establishment of such a global database entirely achievable.

Half a century ago:

It was 1948 when George Orwell settled into seclusion on the Isle of Jura, and there began to work on his most lasting contribution to literature and language. A little over a year passed before his terrifying vision of a future dystopia would be published, entitled simply Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Nineteen Eighty-Four isn’t merely gloomy, it is hellish in altogether more Orwellian ways. A one-party state, in which every member of Ingsoc (the Party) lives under close and constant scrutiny, watched on two-way telescreens, which are highly sensitive devices that can never be turned off. Casual conversations are eavesdropped, by friends just as surely as by strangers, and children are actively encouraged to snoop on their parents; enrolling with the juvenile troops of Spies rather than Scouts (often to the delight and pride of their own brainwashed parents).

There is absolutely no place for privacy in Nineteen Eighty-Four, certainly not for anyone in the Party, with the telescreens monitoring indoors, whilst outside, and aside from the hidden microphones, it is safe to presume that everyone is probably an informant. The Party has, however, less concern for minor dissent that may flare up within the lower ranks of ‘the proles’; the masses that it regards as so ignorant and intent on self-preservation as to pose no serious counter-revolutionary threat. Although even amongst the proles there stalks the ever-present menace of the Thought Police.

Orwell’s new world of dread was forged from the same ideological foundations as the just defeated axis of Fascism. It was a world divided by class, hatred and perpetual war. A world riven and driven by Power. And undoubtedly Orwell was in part presenting his critique of the post-war Soviet Union reconstructed under that other great dictator, Joseph Stalin, with his all-new formula for Communism. Indeed, on the basis of Orwell’s images of Big Brother, it’s fair to judge that this all-powerful leader of Ingsoc (the single party governing the new alliance of Oceania1) was a caricature of Stalin.

Aldous Huxley was Orwell’s old teacher, and in his own futurist satire Brave New World (published in 1932), had envisaged a world of shopping and leisure, founded upon gentle Pavlovian conditioning of eugenically perfected infants, made ready for the soft bed of a world constructed in accordance with Freud’s pleasure principle. In Brave New World, everyone is Dolly the Sheep, and so more forcible means of coercion have become a thing of the forgotten past. George Orwell wrote of his old teacher Huxley’s prophesy as follows:

“Mr Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World was a good caricature of the hedonistic Utopia, the kind of thing that seemed possible and even imminent before Hitler appeared, but it had no relation to the actual future. What we are moving towards at this moment is something more like the Spanish Inquisition, and probably far worse, thanks to the radio and the secret police. There is very little chance of escaping it unless we can reinstate the belief in human brotherhood without the need for a ‘next world’ to give it meaning.”2

Of course, it has turned out to be more complicated than that. Stalin died, and the Eastern Bloc with its many citizen spies and Stasi Thought Police was eventually overthrown by resistance within as much as without. Aldous Huxley always maintained that all forms of brutal totalitarian oppression must eventually succumb to such internal pressures, being forced to give way to a different and softer kind of centralised control, and for a short time it seemed that he was correct. But then came September 11th and how quickly in its shadows, the jackboots came back on the ground. Stomping down on the face of humanity all across the world.

Since about a decade:

In January 2002, within the months following the September 11th attacks, the US Defense Department, under the umbrella of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), began to develop a vast surveillance project, requiring a database even beyond H.G. Wells’ imagining. Set up under the direction of Admiral John Poindexter – formerly Ronald Reagan’s National Security Advisor3 – the Information Awareness Office (IAO) was intended to serve the interests of “National Security”. Its aim was to establish methods of collecting and collating information of all kinds. Records of what an individual purchased, where they travelled, what they watched, and so on, whilst also incorporating information from public records on education and health. More covert snooping was also proposed as a necessary means of analysing internet use, emails, and faxs.

Other plans included the development of “human identification at distance systems” based on biometrics, which would obviate the current reliance on human operators to keep their eyes peeled. Combined with the ever extending network of CCTV, such a system could conceivably keep track of movements of the entire population. In a world soon to be filled with automated face-recognition systems or more probably – given recent technological developments – whole body scanners, it will be unnecessary for government authorities to force the people to carry forms of identity (or under more extreme tyranny, to wear badges), because it will become impossible to hide.

By February 2003, the IAO had begun funding what they called the Total Information Awareness (TIA) Program, although by May 2003 the program had already been renamed the Terrorism Information Awareness Program in an attempt to allay growing public anxiety of its Orwellian spectre. Then in August 2003, Poindexter was forced to resign as TIA chief with concerns that his central role in the Iran-Contra affair had made him unfit to run a sensitive intelligence program. Soon after this the IAO closed and officially the TIA program was terminated with all funding removed, yet it is widely acknowledged that the core of the project remains and that funding was merely switched to other government agencies.4

Finally, perhaps some indication of the true intent of these surveillance projects may be gleaned from the original IAO logo. Featuring a planetary-sized pyramid capped by an all-seeing eye that is scanning the entire Earth, the message is surely loud enough, especially when captioned with the motto “scientia est potentia” (knowledge is power). For what is this pyramid and the all-seeing eye meant to represent? That Big Brother is watching you? That you are already inside the Panopticon? Here was the official explanation of its meaning:

“For the record, the IAO logo was designed to convey the mission of that office; i.e., to imagine, develop, apply, integrate, demonstrate, and transition information technologies, components, and prototype, closed-loop information systems that will counter asymmetric threats by achieving total information awareness useful for preemption, national security warning, and national security decision making. On an elemental level, the logo is the representation of the office acronym (IAO) the eye above the pyramid represents “I” the pyramid represents “A,” and the globe represents “O.” In the detail, the eye scans the globe for evidence of terrorist planning and is focused on the part of the world that was the source of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.”5

Meanwhile, British governments have also brought in rafts of new legislation to extend police powers and limit personal freedom. Indeed, the first major new Terrorism Act, which was introduced in 2000 (and thus prior to the September 11th attacks), actually redefined the meaning of terrorism in order to increase the scope for police intervention. Whilst the disconcertingly titled RIP Act, which quickly followed, further extended the rights for government to intercept communications and to patrol the internet. Then, during David Blunkett’s tenure as Home Secretary, the RIP Act (or RIPA) was broadened again, becoming so extensive that almost 800 separate organisations, including more than 450 councils, have the right to invoke it. People might now be snooped on right across the country for offences no more serious than littering and under-age smoking.6

In the aftermath of the London bombings of July 7th 2005, the New Labour governments under both Blair and Brown also pressed hard for an extension of police rights to detain terrorist suspects. What had begun with seven days, quickly progressed to three weeks, and then, at least in the government’s opinion, required not less than 90 days. The justification given for these extraordinary new measures – the worst of which were thankfully rejected by Parliament – being that plots of the most diabolical kind were suddenly so widespread and complex that the ordinary course of justice had to be by-passed in order to ensure public safety. Around the same time, the introduction of national ID cards was also thwarted, in part thanks to a massive public outcry. Nevertheless, the threat of terrorism (the real risk of which is far lower than during the days of IRA attacks) is the overriding justification for ever more surveillance of our public spaces and our personal lives.7

Throughout the last decade we have all been asked to give up our privacy and other civil liberties on the grounds of enhanced security: sacrificing freedom today for the sake of freedom tomorrow, which may well be, of course, a bargain with the devil. By the end of 2006, the United Kingdom was being described by some experts as ‘the most surveilled country’ among all industrialized Western nations.8

I heard someone speaking on Radio 4 a few years ago. Wrongly convicted for a crime he was later cleared of, he had as a direct consequence spent more than ten years of his life in prison. The interviewer asked him what his first thoughts were after being released as a free man. “Well, I was horrified,” he replied, “horrified that there were just as many cameras on the outside as inside. It was like I’d never left prison.”9

Now and the foreseeable future:

Under construction by contractors with top-secret clearances, the blandly named Utah Data Center is being built for the National Security Agency. A project of immense secrecy, it is the final piece in a complex puzzle assembled over the past decade. Its purpose: to intercept, decipher, analyze, and store vast swaths of the world’s communications as they zap down from satellites and zip through the underground and undersea cables of international, foreign, and domestic networks. The heavily fortified $2 billion center should be up and running in September 2013. Flowing through its servers and routers and stored in near-bottomless databases will be all forms of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Google searches, as well as all sorts of personal data trails—parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other digital “pocket litter.” It is, in some measure, the realization of the “total information awareness” program created during the first term of the Bush administration—an effort that was killed by Congress in 2003 after it caused an outcry over its potential for invading Americans’ privacy10.

From an article entitled “The NSA is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say)” written by James Bamford, the author of The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America. Published in Wired magazine on March 15th, Bamford continues:

For the first time, a former NSA official has gone on the record to describe the program, codenamed Stellar Wind, in detail. William Binney was a senior NSA crypto-mathematician largely responsible for automating the agency’s worldwide eavesdropping network. […]

He explains that the agency could have installed its tapping gear at the nation’s cable landing stations—the more than two dozen sites on the periphery of the US where fiber-optic cables come ashore. If it had taken that route, the NSA would have been able to limit its eavesdropping to just international communications, which at the time was all that was allowed under US law. Instead it chose to put the wiretapping rooms at key junction points throughout the country—large, windowless buildings known as switches—thus gaining access to not just international communications but also to most of the domestic traffic flowing through the US. […]

The eavesdropping on Americans doesn’t stop at the telecom switches. To capture satellite communications in and out of the US, the agency also monitors AT&T’s powerful earth stations, satellite receivers in locations that include Roaring Creek and Salt Creek. […]

Binney left the NSA in late 2001, shortly after the agency launched its warrantless-wiretapping program. “They violated the Constitution setting it up,” he says bluntly. “But they didn’t care. They were going to do it anyway, and they were going to crucify anyone who stood in the way. When they started violating the Constitution, I couldn’t stay.” Binney says Stellar Wind was far larger than has been publicly disclosed and included not just eavesdropping on domestic phone calls but the inspection of domestic email. At the outset the program recorded 320 million calls a day, he says, which represented about 73 to 80 percent of the total volume of the agency’s worldwide intercepts. The haul only grew from there. According to Binney—who has maintained close contact with agency employees until a few years ago—the taps in the secret rooms dotting the country are actually powered by highly sophisticated software programs that conduct “deep packet inspection,” examining Internet traffic as it passes through the 10-gigabit-per-second cables at the speed of light. […]

After he left the NSA, Binney suggested a system for monitoring people’s communications according to how closely they are connected to an initial target. The further away from the target—say you’re just an acquaintance of a friend of the target—the less the surveillance. But the agency rejected the idea, and, given the massive new storage facility in Utah, Binney suspects that it now simply collects everything. “The whole idea was, how do you manage 20 terabytes of intercept a minute?” he says. “The way we proposed was to distinguish between things you want and things you don’t want.” Instead, he adds, “they’re storing everything they gather.” And the agency is gathering as much as it can.

Once the communications are intercepted and stored, the data-mining begins. “You can watch everybody all the time with data- mining,” Binney says. Everything a person does becomes charted on a graph, “financial transactions or travel or anything,” he says. Thus, as data like bookstore receipts, bank statements, and commuter toll records flow in, the NSA is able to paint a more and more detailed picture of someone’s life.

Click here to read more of James Bamford’s eye-opening article, and then, hereto read a still more extraordinary article published by Wired magazine on the very same day:

More and more personal and household devices are connecting to the internet, from your television to your car navigation systems to your light switches. CIA Director David Petraeus cannot wait to spy on you through them.

Earlier this month, Petraeus mused about the emergence of an “Internet of Things” — that is, wired devices — at a summit for In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital firm. “‘Transformational’ is an overused word, but I do believe it properly applies to these technologies,” Petraeus enthused, “particularly to their effect on clandestine tradecraft.”

All those new online devices are a treasure trove of data if you’re a “person of interest” to the spy community. Once upon a time, spies had to place a bug in your chandelier to hear your conversation. With the rise of the “smart home,” you’d be sending tagged, geolocated data that a spy agency can intercept in real time when you use the lighting app on your phone to adjust your living room’s ambiance.

“Items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled through technologies such as radio-frequency identification, sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and energy harvesters — all connected to the next-generation internet using abundant, low-cost, and high-power computing,”11

Orwell, for all of his profound insight and prescience, could never have imagined the sort of universal networks of surveillance being so rapidly put in place today. He didn’t see, for instance, as Huxley might have done, how people would one day almost willingly give up their privacy, and not only as the price for security, but purely for convenience and pleasure. That personal tracking devices would one day become such highly desirable commodities, in the form of mobile phones and ‘sat nav’s, that it would actually be strange not to carry one. That social networking sites would be temptation enough for many millions to divulge huge volumes of personal information, private opinions, dreams and fantasies. That others would broadcast their thoughts via emails, tweets, blogs, and all could be swept up in a worldwide web. The worldwide wiretap, as Julian Assange referred to it.

This post is another part of the immense traffic of data presumably being collected and analysed by those at the NSA (and in all probability also filtered using servers at our own GCHQ). That you are reading this is most probably being recorded too. So feel free to add a comment, although you should be cautioned that whatever you do say may later be used as evidence against you. The Panopticon is watching all of us.

Click here to read a wikipedia overview of the types of mass surveillance now used in the United Kingdom and elsewhere.

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Additional:

Here is a Russia Today report broadcast a few days later on Friday 30th March entitled: “Minority report: Era of total surveillance zooms-in on US?”

As for Britain, and whatever the situation right now, the government is just about to announce new measures that will open the way for GCHQ to have “access to communications on demand, in real time” with the justification being, as always, “to investigate serious crime and terrorism and to protect the public”:

A new law – which may be announced in the forthcoming Queen’s Speech in May – would not allow GCHQ to access the content of emails, calls or messages without a warrant.

But it would enable intelligence officers to identify who an individual or group is in contact with, how often and for how long. They would also be able to see which websites someone had visited.

1 The setting is roughly as follows. Some time after the World War, the world divided up into three warring superpowers: Oceania (previously America, Australia and Airstrip One); Eurasia (Russia and the rest of Europe); and Eastasia (China and India). These states have since then been engaged in an endless three-sided conflict, fighting to gain control of the resources in a disputed zone which includes North Africa and the Middle East. Progress in this conflict is reported to the citizens of Oceania via a government controlled media, relaying information manufactured by the Ministry of Truth.

2 Taken from “Notes on the way” by George Orwell, first published in Time and Tide. London, 1940.

3 Poindexter had been previously been convicted of lying to Congress and altering and destroying documents pertaining to the Iran-Contra Affair.

4 These include Advanced Research and Development Activity (ARDA), a part of the Disruptive Technology Office (run by to the Director of National Intelligence); and SAIC, run by former Defense and military officials and which had originally been awarded US$19 million IAO contract to build the prototype system in late 2002.

5 Statement of the Information Awareness Office regarding the meaning and use of the IAO logo. Source: Question 15 in the IAO Frequently Asked Questions – document dated February, 2003 which can be accessed at http://www.darpa.mil/iao/TIA_FAQs.pdf

6 The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIP or RIPA) regulates the powers of public bodies to carry out surveillance and investigation, especially with regard to the interception of communication. It can be invoked by government officials specified in the Act on the grounds of national security, and for the purposes of preventing or detecting crime, preventing disorder, public safety, protecting public health, or in the interests of the economic well-being of the United Kingdom.

“Councils have used laws designed to combat terrorism to access more than 900 people’s private phone and email records in the latest example of Britain’s growing surveillance state. Town hall spies found out who residents were phoning and emailing as they investigated such misdemeanours as dog quarantine breaches and unlicensed storage of petrol. The news prompted fresh calls from civil rights groups for a reform of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa), which was originally brought in to combat terrorism and serious crime but is increasingly being used by councils to snoop on members of the public. In April a council in Dorset used Ripa powers to spy for weeks on a family it wrongly suspected of breaking rules on school catchment areas. Other local authorities have used covert surveillance to investigate such petty offences as dog fouling and under-age smoking.” extract from “Council snoopers access 900 phone bills” by Gordon Rayner, Chief Reporter, Daily Telegraph, 5th June 2008. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2075026/Council-snoopers-access-900-phone-bills.html

7 “Deputy chief constable of Hampshire Ian Readhead said Britain could become a surveillance society with cameras on every street corner. He told the BBC‘s Politics Show that CCTV was being used in small towns and villages where crime rates were low… ‘If it’s in our villages, are we really moving towards an Orwellian situation where cameras are at every street corner?’

‘And I really don’t think that’s the kind of country that I want to live in.’ There are up to 4.2 million CCTV cameras in Britain – about one for every 14 people.” from BBC News, Sunday, 20th May 2007. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6673579.stm

8“Produced by a group of academics called the Surveillance Studies Network, the [Surveillance Society] report was presented to the 28th International Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners’ Conference in London, hosted by the Information Commissioner’s Office. […]

The report’s co-writer Dr David Murakami-Wood told BBC News that, compared to other industrialised Western states, the UK was “the most surveilled country”.

“We have more CCTV cameras and we have looser laws on privacy and data protection,” he said.

“We really do have a society which is premised both on state secrecy and the state not giving up its supposed right to keep information under control while, at the same time, wanting to know as much as it can about us.”

The report coincides with the publication by the human rights group Privacy International of figures that suggest Britain is the worst Western democracy at protecting individual privacy.

The two worst countries in the 36-nation survey are Malaysia and China, and Britain is one of the bottom five with ‘endemic surveillance’.”

9Unfortunately, since I did not have pen at hand – I was driving at the time! – I can no longer recall his precise words and so I have been compelled to paraphrase what he said. I have tried to be accurate so far as memory serves me.